Interventionism
by Taaroko
Summary: Johann Schmidt's experiments with the Tesseract have not gone unnoticed by the Gatekeeper of Asgard, but there didn't seem to be a need to act until Schmidt himself landed on the Rainbow Bridge. (Listing this as a Thor fic instead of a Thor/Cap crossover because it will primarily focus on Thor and Loki being bros.) Thor&Loki and possibly Thor/Sif. Not slash. Enjoy and review!
1. Red Skull on the Rainbow Bridge

So I bought Thor: Ragnarok on DVD as soon as I could, and since then I've rewatched it three times and did a full Thor marathon, which I will likely do again. This is officially my favorite corner of the MCU. I love me some immortal space Vikings, and the brother dynamic between Thor and Loki is some of the most compelling stuff I've ever had on my screen. It was pretty much inevitable that I'd come up with a fanfic idea sooner or later, and here we are.

* * *

"What news of Midgard, Gatekeeper?" said Odin. Hugin and Munin had brought him word that Heimdall had spotted something troubling on the isolated realm of little magic and primitive science. The native sorcerers, amateurs though they were, had succeeded in keeping several threats that might have needed Asgardian intervention at bay, while exhibiting no ambition to cause alarm. And of the many human nations, only one was anywhere close to developing the technology needed to break free of the planet's confines, but that people appeared to be peaceful and keen to keep well to themselves. Indeed, Laufey's invasion had been the last time Asgard's aid was truly needed.

"The last descendant of the house you entrusted the Tesseract to centuries ago has been slain, my king," said Heimdall. "It has been removed from its place of safekeeping by men who wish to harness its power in the war that has swept the realm these last years."

Odin frowned. "The mortals are yet too primitive to harness the power of an Infinity Stone indirectly." He cast a significant glance at Heimdall's breastplate, then met those all-seeing golden eyes. "And too fragile to survive using one directly. But keep me informed. I shall decide when and if any action should be taken on our part."

Heimdall inclined his head respectfully. "Yes, my king."

X

Heimdall continued his watch over the deadliest war the Midgardians had ever waged. It was nothing to the interplanetary wars of conquest Asgard had once fought to establish the nine realms and the other colonies and protectorates, in the days of Odin's forebears and the Allfather's own early rule, before he lost his eye and became the wiser king they had known for a thousand years. It was nothing even to wars they had fought since then, to protect the realms against outside invaders such as the Kree, Skrull, and Shi'ar empires. There was, however, something peculiarly tragic about watching a single race do its best destroy itself.

But while this Johann Schmidt had, contrary to Odin's expectations, succeeded in manufacturing weapons using the Tesseract, he was thwarted at every turn by one Steven Grant Rogers. The same science that had turned Schmidt monstrous had been refined and used on a young man, frail even by mortal standards, granting him a stature comparable to that of Asgard's crown prince. Rogers and his brothers-in-arms were the reason Heimdall had little of concern to report to his king, who remained uninterested in interfering with the war at large. Heimdall would always do his duty to his king, but men of valor like these were what made his watch a burden he was glad to bear, even through all the suffering he saw.

It had not escaped Heimdall's notice that the king seemed unusually keen to keep discussion of Midgard's war to a minimum whenever his heir was on Asgard. Thor was boisterous and eager to throw himself into a battle whenever he could, and his friends followed his lead, as did his brother, if less enthusiastically. Heimdall was not certain Odin's discretion was necessary in this case, but he understood why he might be wary of offering a child of his the temptation of a weaker realm in disarray. Historically, it was a temptation not often resisted by their line. But Thor was not Hela, the sister he had never known. What he liked best was an adventure or a challenging fight in defense of Asgard. He would find neither on Midgard.

X

Almost three years to the day from the theft of the Tesseract, Thor, Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three called Heimdall to open the Bifrost so they could return from Muspelheim. They had gone to the fiery world on the rumor that lost relics from King Bor's war against the Dark Elves had been hidden there. As there were no disputes they were needed to help quell, Odin had indulged them, even though he shared Heimdall's skepticism that this quest would bear fruit. Sure enough, they stepped out of the brilliant vortex sooty and bearing various trivial battle wounds, but no Gem of Infinite Suns or Horn of the Faerie. And yet they hardly seemed troubled by it. All Hogun and Volstagg required of an adventure was a story to bring back to their families. Fandral would use the same story to impress Asgardian maidens. And as long as Thor was there, Sif could come back empty-handed a thousand times over and be content. Thor was the only one who seemed at all disappointed, but he bore it well in the face of his friends' excitement.

The companions all greeted Heimdall warmly—particularly Sif, who was always happy to see her (much older) brother, and he her. Heimdall listened with a smile to their eager account of their adventures. They knew he had seen it all himself, but he always enjoyed their exaggerated descriptions. His gaze turned, however, to the bridge, where stood a lone figure clad in green. Thor was the first of the group to notice, and his face lit up. "Loki! You won't believe what happened on Muspelheim!" He went to his brother and pulled him into a hug, which Loki tolerated stiffly.

"I'm sure you all had great fun," he said.

"I'm sorry you couldn't come," said Thor. "Did Father finally give his reasons for forbidding you from going there?"

Every time Thor and his friends had gone to Muspelheim, Odin had barred Loki from accompanying them—when Frigga could not devise an adequate distraction to keep him from wanting to go along in the first place, at least. They did this with very good reason. A planet of fire and molten rock was no place for a Frost Giant, even one whose lifelong diet of Asgardian food had rendered him almost as Aesir in function as enchantment had made him in appearance. But all Loki knew was that he wasn't allowed to join his brother, and Heimdall could see his resentment over it. It was not the Gatekeeper's place to question his king's decisions, but he had long felt that keeping the truth of Loki's origins from him was unwise, however well-intentioned.

"He never has before, so why bother asking?" said Loki.

"Then what have you been up to while we were away?" said Thor. Sif stalked past them, followed by Hogun and the still laughing and chattering Volstagg and Fandral.

"Is she _still_ sore about what I did to her hair? Surely she's realized by now that this color suits her far better."

Thor laughed and clapped Loki on the back hard enough to make him stagger. "Perhaps, but I don't think she appreciated you deciding that for her, Brother."

Because Heimdall had been watching them, his attention on Johann Schmidt and the Tesseract had waned. Before the princes could go fifty paces down the bridge, a beam of brilliant blue light shot across space and deposited a screaming man right at the entrance to the Bifrost's golden sphere.

Thor and Loki turned, though the others were too far down the bridge to have heard the disturbance.

Schmidt got to his feet and spun around, taking in the surroundings distinctly alien to him and laughing wildly.

"What is _that_?" said Loki. "It's hideous."

"Whatever it is, it has trespassed where it does not belong," said Thor, his tone dangerous, raising Mjolnir a few inches.

"It hardly seems worth your time," said Loki. The Midgardian man was almost equal to Thor in height but far less impressive in stature.

"Any threat to Asgard is worth my time," said Thor.

As they spoke, Schmidt continued to laugh while drawing a small hand-weapon from a hidden holster in his clothes. It glowed blue like the weapons Heimdall had watched him use to disintegrate men where they stood, and he now aimed it at the approaching princes. Heimdall seized Hofund and charged. Schmidt fired his weapon before Heimdall could reach him, and the blast grazed Loki's left arm and continued on, past the other four farther up the bridge, until it burst against the first solid object it reached, leaving a smoking hole a foot across. Both brothers yelled—Loki in pain and surprise, Thor in rage—but that was the only shot Schmidt succeeded in taking. The next second, Heimdall plunged Hofund through his chest.

* * *

The movie makes it pretty unclear whether the Tesseract obliterated Schmidt or beamed him somewhere in space. For all I know, he's going to show up as one of Thanos's henchmen in Infinity War, but it hardly seems that only one destination was possible, so why not Asgard?

Okay, so my ideas for where I want to go with this fic are very rough. It started out as something that could've been a three-panel comic strip, with Red Skull getting beamed to Asgard and then Thor and/or Heimdall immediately demolishing him. But then I realized that this would be a pretty good jumping-off point for a pretty serious canon-diverging fic. Some things I'd like to explore with it are Loki's true heritage (if I can figure out how to force that secret out without a Frost Giant grabbing his arm) and Thor/Sif (her absence in Ragnarok made me grumpy, but at least she's not dead like the Warriors Three). Right now, the biggest obstacle to both of those goals is that I'm working with pre-character development Thor. If I can figure out how to make it work, we're gonna be seeing some Asgardians on Earth soon, interacting with characters from Captain America.

I've noticed a tendency in Thor fics to make Odin much worse than he is in the movies. I will not be doing that. He's definitely made plenty of bad parenting decisions and has an unfortunate tendency to try to cover up unpleasant truths instead of dealing with them, but he's not entirely horrible. Frigga has been an extremely good influence on him (as evidenced by how irrational he gets after her death), and it seems to me that losing his eye was a turning point for the sort of king he was. Now he's terrified that Thor might go down the same path as Hela (hence angrily banishing him after he goes to Jotunheim and forcing him to learn a hard lesson in humility) and then Loki went and tried to destroy the entire planet just to impress him. When I see Odin, I see a man who fears that his line is so drenched in blood that they'll never be free of it—that being ruthless conquerers is in their natures.


	2. Allmother

Seated upon Hlidskjalf, Odin could see anything in the nine realms. It wasn't the same as Heimdall's sight; the Gatekeeper's awareness was continuously connected to every living soul to some degree, whereas the throne enabled Odin to see, as if through a window, whatever location he chose. His focus had been on Thor enough of late to know of his impending return.

Contentedly watching his two sons walk the rainbow bridge together, it was quite a shock to see the Midgardian who had taken the Tesseract appear behind them in a shower of blue light. Odin's grip tightened on Gungnir, but there wasn't time to do anything before the man drew a weapon and fired it. Fully aware of what this man's weapons could do, Odin's surprise turned to horror, then terror, then mingled relief and fury when the blast grazed Loki's arm.

Clearly he had underestimated the ingenuity of Midgardians. To not only reach Asgard but to attack her prince? At the very least, the Tesseract would have to be retrieved at once so this could not happen again.

X

Lightning flashed and thunder boomed over Asgard. Thor was in a towering rage, and the worst part of it was the one responsible for harming Loki was already dead, though he had had no hand in it. "Are there more of them on the way?" he demanded of Heimdall.

"No, my prince. He alone had access to the power that brought him here."

Sif and the Warriors Three caught back up to them then. "What in the nine realms was that?" said Fandral.

"A war criminal of Midgard breached our borders," said Heimdall, wiping Hofund's blade clean on the man's strange clothing.

" _Midgard_?!" said Sif and Volstagg in unison.

"It must have changed since our last visit," said Loki.

"You four," said Thor to his friends, "take the body of this trespasser to my father. I'll meet you there after I take my brother to the healing room."

"I don't—" Loki began, but Thor had already grabbed him around the middle and whirled Mjolnir into flight. Loki immediately began thrashing against him. "Put me _down_ this instant! I don't need a bloody healing room!"

They had just reached the support pillar where the full force of the Midgardian's weapon had hit. The hole still sizzled, and Thor's mind filled with a horrible image of what could have happened. He pushed Mjolnir to take them even faster. Loki abruptly ceased his cursing and struggles, and for a moment Thor feared that meant his injury was worse than he'd thought. But then a sharp pain seared into his side. He yelled and they both tumbled back to the bridge.

"Are you mad, Loki?" said Thor, yanking the short dagger out of his ribs and tossing it aside as he got to his feet. "What was that for? I'm trying to help you!"

"Are you listening now?" Loki shouted. He brandished his injured arm in Thor's face, giving him a clear view of the fist-sized hole in the sleeve and the seared and blistering flesh beneath it. "I don't need a healing room! That blast barely grazed me." He stepped back and waved a hand at Thor. "You've got burns and cuts all over you from Muspelheim; why don't you get a healing room for yourself!"

"If I need a healing room, it's only now that you've _stabbed_ me!" Lightning crashed on either side of the bridge.

"Don't be so dramatic," said Loki.

"If that blast had been farther to the right, you could've lost your arm! There might even have been a hole through your chest instead of that pillar. Forgive me for wanting to be certain my brother has come to no real harm!"

"I may not be able to match you for brute strength, Thor, but I'm hardly made of glass. Go do something useful like telling Father about the mad, skull-faced Midgardian who made it all the way to Asgard!"

Thor did so, but before Mjolnir pulled him into the air again, he cuffed Loki hard over the head, barely resisting the impulse to shove him right off the bridge and into the water below. And to think, moments ago, he'd been waiting for the Bifrost on Muspelheim, eager above anything to see his brother again after months apart.

X

Loki couldn't believe he'd actually let himself miss that stupid oaf enough to go out to Bifrost when Father told him of his impending return. Thor deserved a much greater injury than the one Loki had done him for hauling him off like an invalid child in front of all of his friends and the Gatekeeper, all over a couple of blisters.

He stalked back to the palace and to his chambers, cloaking himself whenever he encountered anyone so as not to be disturbed. He was too incensed even to care about what Father decided to do about a one-man Midgardian invasion, and he did not want to attend the inevitable banquet to celebrate the return of Thor, Sif, and the Idiots Three.

X

The quarrel with Loki had put Thor in a foul mood, which persisted even through the return banquet held in his and his friends' honor. Father had determined that Asgard should carry on as usual, and that while the Midgard situation would be addressed in short order, it need only be known to a select few. Neither the court nor the Einherjar would be involved as of yet.

Thor had never had Loki's talent for concealing his emotions, particularly when they were unpleasant ones. It was an occupational hazard of being the God of Thunder. Most of the time, this didn't bother him in the least, but he did not like being so obvious now. His friends and his people deserved their night of celebration, and it should not be marred by their prince's scowl and the occasional rumble of thunder outside.

X

The queen watched her eldest throughout the celebration. Frigga did not need Hlidskjalf or Heimdall's sight to know that that scowl while his friends laughed and feasted around him meant his reunion with his brother had not gone well. She exchanged glances with her husband, who lifted his eye to the high ceiling.

She went to Loki first. She knew she would not find him in his chambers; he never did anything so obvious as remaining shut up there for long. Instead, she went to the palace library. The alcove at the far window appeared as deserted as the rest of the place, but a gentle prod of seidr in the just the right spot unraveled the illusion.

"Hello, Mother," said Loki, not looking up from his book at her approach.

"You were missed at the feast."

Lightning flashed in the window, followed by another rumble of thunder. "I doubt that."

"What happened?" She did not ask for the sake of obtaining the facts; Odin had told her of Loki's wound, and she had been able to guess the rest from observing Thor.

"Nothing." She walked closer, gently removed the book from his hands, and waited patiently for him to look at her. When he finally did, his mouth twisted. "I merely received a healthy reminder of what the mighty Thor thinks of me. It's my own fault for requiring one."

"Loki. Your brother loves you. He's not trying to make you feel inferior."

"And I suppose intent is all that matters."

"Not _all_ , but it does matter." She watched him with a very familiar combination of frustration and affection. He was determined to take offense. Close to his first millennium and still so young. Just as Thor was. "Has it occurred to you that he might only have reacted to your wound as he did, not because he thinks you weak, but because it's so rare for you to be wounded in the first place?"

"Ah, then hauling me off with Mjolnir over nothing was a mark of his great respect for my talents and abilities, was it?"

"He's used to seeing you cleverly evade the kinds of blows he and his friends often blunder into headfirst. What's more, this attack caught you _both_ by surprise, in the place where we should all be safest, and then it was over before he had a chance to vent his spleen about it."

"All he had to do was ask if I was well before leaping into action. Even just taking a proper look at my arm would have told him as much."

"Thor feels before he thinks, and that is what guides his action. You are quite the reverse. Little wonder you misunderstand each other so easily, but it's also why you're so powerful when you work together."

"When Father allows it, perhaps."

Frigga's heart felt heavy, weighed down by the secrets she kept from her precious boy. She sat down beside him on the window ledge. "Is this what truly troubles you? Your father does not bar you from Muspelheim out of spite."

"Then why? You always say he does nothing without purpose, but what does it signify when I'm not to know what that purpose is?"

She could give no answer that would satisfy him, but she _would_ be having a conversation with her husband later. It would in all likelihood go the same way it had every time the subject of Loki's origins was raised, but there was always value in not allowing Odin to get too comfortable about his mandate of secrecy.

X

After the banquet, Odin conferred with Heimdall. It seemed the Tesseract had fallen into the ocean immediately after sending Schmidt to Asgard. Were it not for the fact that Midgardians already searched for it, Odin might have been content to leave it there. Retrieval would now be more difficult, however, because Heimdall could no longer see it, and Odin could only guess at its location. Odin could see that Heimdall had an opinion about what should be done, but the Gatekeeper was respectful to a fault, never volunteering his opinions if Odin didn't ask for them.

"Speak your mind," he said.

"My king, I have spoken to you of the Midgardian Steven Rogers."

"Yes, he was the reason this Johann Schmidt failed to make as great a nuisance of himself as he tried to—until he came straight here, at least."

"Rogers fell in his last battle against Schmidt," said Heimdall. "I can no longer see him, and his people are unlikely to find him, but he has shown such courage and valour that he should have a warrior's funeral."

"You would have us honor a mortal as one of our own?"

"I would."

Odin considered a moment. He knew how Heimdall's watch weighed on him. Even for the son of a Valkyrie, it was no easy burden to bear. Thus, on the rare occasions he made a request, Odin was inclined to meet it. What he now proposed, though uncommon, was not unheard of. "I will grant you this, Gatekeeper. You saw where he fell?"

"Yes, my king. The initial impact did not kill him. I hoped he would wake, but I lost sight of him as the banquet began."

"Then I see no reason why we cannot retrieve him along with the Tesseract."

X

Frigga went to Thor next. As anger sent Loki into his books, it sent Thor to the training grounds. This late at night, he was the only one there. Mjolnir sat unused; instead, he demolished one enemy woven of golden light after another with his bare fists.

"It has been a long time since I saw you so out of spirits at a feast, my son," she said as she drew near.

He delivered one last blow beneath the chin of his current opponent, which flew into the air and disintegrated into sparks. He turned to face her but would not look at her. Sometimes even she had trouble believing that he and Loki were not brothers by blood.

"I know of the quarrel you had with Loki."

His scowl darkened. He cast a glance at the interface that would generate fresh foes for him, but he had too much respect for her to conjure more while she spoke to him. That did not mean he would be readily forthcoming, however. As guarded as Loki was, it was always easier to coax him to speak than Thor. He did not have to work to put words to what he felt.

"He missed you, you know," she said. "He'll not thank me for telling you this, but he spent the better part of the afternoon waiting at Bifrost for your arrival."

"The Midgardian _shot_ him. I watched it happen, and I saw the hole the weapon made in one of the pillars. That could have been Loki."

Frigga swallowed down the sound that tried to erupt from her throat at the very thought of it. Betraying her own distress over Loki's safety would not help her make her point. "And you did not protect him," she said gently.

Thor's jaw and fists clenched, and he turned even farther away. "Heimdall did. It was his duty and I do not begrudge him fulfilling it."

"But you wish it had been you?"

"He's my brother," said Thor simply.

"Then, denied the chance to attack Loki's attacker, your next instinct was to do all in your power to ensure he was well."

"Yes, and he _stabbed_ me for it!" he burst out, throwing his hands up.

Frigga pursed her lips. Whether or not it did any actual damage to Thor, she had never been amused by Loki's habit of using daggers to express his displeasure with him. "He was wrong to do so, but my dear, try to imagine how he feels. He's spent months attending tedious Council meetings when he wanted to be getting into trouble on Muspelheim with you. He thinks your father believes him too weak to go to a realm of dragons and demons, and then the first thing you do when you return home is carry him off like a helpless child to treat a minor wound, all while completely ignoring your own set of fresh battle wounds. How would you have borne it had you been in his place?"

"Not well," he said grudgingly.

"He does not like being made to feel inferior, particularly when there is an audience. I love that you have such care for your brother's wellbeing, but you can easily wound his pride by the way you express it."

At this, she saw his anger deflate. The sky cleared to show the stars, and he finally looked at her. "Then how _am_ I to express it, Mother?"

Frigga often thought it would be impossible to love Thor more than she did, until moments like this, when he surprised her by shedding his proud warrior swagger entirely and humbly seeking her wisdom. What a king he would make one day. But she didn't want to embarrass him with a sudden flood of affection, so she merely raised one hand to touch his cheek. "Well, you could start by _asking_ before you fly off with him next time," she said, raising an eyebrow.

He let out a snort, and she knew her battle was won. "I suppose that shouldn't be too hard to remember."

X

The following morning, both Odinsons were called before Hlidskjalf to attend the king. When they first saw each other across the hall, Thor offered a tentative smile. For an agonized moment, it seemed to have no effect, but then Loki rolled his eyes and smirked, and Thor's smile grew into a grin. He wanted to cuff Loki around the head again—out of affection this time—but the throne room was not the place for that.

"My sons, welcome," said Odin as they both knelt.

"What do you require of us, Father?" said Thor.

"I have a mission for you to complete on Midgard."

Thor opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again and shot a quick look at Loki.

"Does this mission have to do with the trespasser?" said Loki.

"Not directly," said Odin. "But he is the reason Asgard must take action."

"Then I will inform Lady Sif and the Warriors Three," said Thor, beginning to rise.

"No," said Odin, and Thor froze, surprised. "There is no battle for you to fight on Midgard. It is a simple retrieval mission." Thor's confusion only increased, and Odin must have seen it, for he went on, "You were not who I thought to send at first, but after your tumultuous reunion yesterday, your mother believes it would do the two of you good, and I agree. Heimdall will tell you what you need to know and you will leave for Midgard tomorrow."

Thor and Loki glanced at each other long enough to see that they wore identical expressions of chagrin and embarrassment. "Yes, Father," they said together.

* * *

The movies don't really do anything with Odin's throne Hlidskjalf, but I really like the concept, so I tried to figure out a way to incorporate it without making Heimdall's sight redundant, and I'm pretty happy with the result. Now, you might be wondering how Heimdall could have lost sight of Steve even if he's not dead. All I can say about that is you'll find out. *evil grin*

Okay, the stabbing thing. When you live five thousand years and are a nigh-indestructable space Viking, it seems to me that the occasional dagger in the ribs from your brother is roughly equivalent human siblings poking each other in the ribs. Which is why Frigga's reaction to it is merely to roll her eyes at her ridiculous boys. And why Thor, in the movies, never seems to hold a grudge about the many times Loki stabs him. I suspect the snake incident when they were eight stands out because it was the first time it happened.

From a writer perspective, Heimdall is incredibly useful. He sees everything, so it's very easy to use him to direct the plot where I want it to go. Also I just love Heimdall, so it's great being able to write him so much.


	3. Capsicle

The Bifrost faded, leaving Thor and Loki standing in light armor on a featureless plain of snow and ice, shovels over their shoulders and coils of golden rope hanging from their belts.

"Forced bonding time on Midgard," said Loki. "What fun."

"Let's just find this fallen warrior," said Thor.

"That eager to be rid of me so you can get back to your adoring masses, are you?"

" _No_ ," said Thor, annoyed. He considered for a moment, then smirked. "Is there a reason I can't have my brother _and_ my adoring masses?"

Loki rolled his eyes. Victory: Thor. "So where is this ship the warrior crashed?"

The ocean was just visible in the distance on their left, so Thor turned to the right. Heimdall had given him the final images he'd seen of Steven Rogers, and the Bifrost should have brought them no more than a mile from the spot. "There," he said, pointing to the largest raised mass of ice in the area. They started for it in silence, sinking into the snow up to their knees with every step.

"I'm sorry," said Thor.

"For what?" said Loki, sounding startled.

"For trying to take you to a healing room when you didn't need one. I saw you hurt and I stopped thinking."

He glanced over, realizing too late that he'd given his brother the perfect opening to insinuate that not thinking was his natural condition, but Loki only met his gaze and nodded.

They kept walking. Thor waited for Loki to speak, but he didn't. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"I apologized to you."

"And? I'm not going to apologize for stabbing you."

"What? Why not?!"

"Please. I stab you all the time."

"It's rude!"

"It's _hilarious_."

"Well it got old about five hundred years ago."

"Oh dear. I haven't become predictable, have I?" Something about his tone filled Thor with genuine apprehension, and it must've shown on his face, because Loki grinned. "Good. That would have made things terribly dull for me."

Thor scowled. Victory: Loki. "I'm glad you can find such amusement at my expense."

"Someone has to keep your head from growing any larger than it already is."

They had drawn close enough to the mass of ice now to be able to see two mounds of metal protruding from the ends of it, roughly eighty paces apart.

"Sif and Heimdall never stab each other," Thor muttered.

"Clearly neither of them has any sense of humor at all."

"Oh, I don't know, I found it pretty amusing when Sif dangled you over a bilgesnipe den by your foot. You really shouldn't have turned her sword into a snake."

X

The only parts of the Midgardian vessel that were completely clear of ice were the tips of the wings, which meant they had a lot of tedious work to do with their shovels to reach the cabin. Occasionally, Thor would break up the solid ice with Mjolnir, but for the most part they simply dug. It was dull work, if not particularly taxing.

This was not the first time Father had set them doing manual labor as punishment for fighting or getting into some kind of trouble, but being made to do it when they were two centuries past the age of majority was a bit humiliating. Undoubtedly that had been the point. At least it was for an honorable enough purpose that nobody was likely to make smart remarks about it.

"Where's Audhumla when you need her?" he said after they'd been at it for half an hour.

Thor chuckled. "Do you believe Great-Grandfather Buri really came into being when a cow licked him out of some ice?"

"No, I assume he merely got himself trapped in it, and told everyone that to sound more impressive," said Loki. "He must have got up to all manner of trouble before he founded Asgard. Personally, I think you take after him more than I do."

Thor grinned and tossed a handful of pulverized ice at him.

"Does this ice seem abnormally dense to you?" said Loki a few minutes later. By now, they'd cleared several feet of the stuff.

"No," said Thor. "Why?"

"I don't know," said Loki. "It's just a bit...odd." He looked around. When he'd pictured a downed aircraft that collided with an ice field at great speed, he'd assumed the sheets of ice that pushed over the top would all be angled in the same direction. These did not, and the area also seemed rather colder than the spot where they'd landed. Not cold enough to give them difficulties, but it still made Loki wonder.

He couldn't account for these phenomena at all, but he didn't have the chance to dwell on them further because Thor's shovel had just made a distinctly metallic sound. Loki hopped back into the trench they'd made and helped clear a spot on the aircraft's hull. They uncovered painted letters, which wouldn't have mattered to them, except that they eventually spelled _die Walküre._

"'The Valkyrie'," Thor growled. "Schmidt makes a mockery of our history on top of his other crimes?"

"A pity he's already dead," said Loki. The Valkyries had all fallen in battle when he and Thor were boys. Most Aesir children had looked up to the elite warriors, Thor in particular, and he had been devastated. Odin had never reformed the Valkyrior after that battle. As yet, Sif was the only shieldmaiden of Loki and Thor's generation to come close to the combat skill of a Valkyrie—though having a half-brother whose mother had been one certainly gave her an edge in that respect.

Loki plunged a long dagger straight through the first letter and carved a circle into the hull, his Aesir blade cutting through the Midgardian steel like butter. Then Thor, face still full of contempt at Schmidt's presumption, punched the circle through with a single strike from Mjolnir. It crumpled around the hammer and fell to the floor with a clang. Loki conjured several balls of greenish-gold light and sent them inside. Thor dropped through the hole at once, and Loki followed.

The craft's interior was both spacious and ugly, all gray metal, bracers, and bolts, with ludicrous concave hexagonal panels along the ceiling. Loki wrinkled his nose at it and followed Thor down the angled floor.

"Heimdall was right," said Thor. "This is no fit resting place for a warrior."

The nose of the craft was surprisingly intact considering that it was mostly made of windows. Loki was perplexed, therefore, by the amount of ice that had gotten inside. He tested some of it with a dagger. It was more of the denser stuff like what they'd just been digging through.

"Here," said Thor, pointing. "Rogers's shield. He must be close. I hope his weapon didn't fall too far from him. It won't be a proper warrior's funeral without it."

"Did Heimdall mention a weapon?" said Loki.

"No, but why wouldn't he have one?" said Thor.

Loki opened his mouth to retort that there were plenty of ways to win battles outside of swinging big, obvious weapons such as Uru-forged hammers about, but then he remembered they were talking about a Midgardian, and their kind rarely had access to alternative means of fighting, such as magic. So he merely shrugged.

Retrieving Rogers from the ice proved more complicated than digging their way into the ship. Thor couldn't simply shatter the ice from around his body; damaging it further would defeat the purpose of giving him the honor of an Asgardian funeral. Instead, Loki used his dagger to test for flaws in the ice. Then Thor followed up with a tap on the dagger's hilt from Mjolnir. In this way, they gradually chiseled pieces off until they had fully uncovered the man. He, however, was also frozen solid, which would make him an awkward and unwieldy burden. Loki didn't understand it. After less than two full days in these temperatures, a mortal of this size should not have had time to freeze completely through. Particularly when he had been alive for several hours after hitting the ice.

"I still can't find any trace of a weapon," said Thor. He lifted the shield. Loki found the design on it (and Rogers's...was that armor?) rather tacky, but Thor didn't seem to have noticed. "This metal cannot be of Midgard," he said, frowning.

"What? Let me see that," said Loki skeptically. Thor passed it over. Weaponry was one of the rare subjects in which Thor was better versed than Loki, but it was clear to him too upon brief inspection that the shield was not made of any known Midgardian ore. "Curious. If there is a sword or spear to accompany this, it would be a travesty to lose it."

"There's nothing here but more of what Schmidt used," said Thor. "Perhaps Heimdall can give us a better idea of what we're after, and then we can return for it."

They carried Rogers carefully back to the spot beneath the hole. "Now...what do you suppose is the best way to do this?"

"Well, fly out with him and you risk breaking one of his limbs off if you misjudge the hole," said Loki. He kept the sarcasm in his voice to a minimum; judging by the amount of fidgeting Thor was doing, he was plainly already concerned about whether it was disrespectful to carry the frozen body of a great warrior about like a statue, even if he was only a Midgardian. "Better to use Mjolnir as a weight for the ropes."

Thor nodded. Loki gave him one end of his rope, and he took the shield and whirled Mjolnir to lift himself out. A moment later, he tossed the ends of both their ropes back down. One for Loki to haul Rogers up with, the other for him to climb. Loki swiftly set to work tying one around Rogers's chest. At this rate, they would be back in Asgard in time for the midday meal. Not a very long adventure at all. Thor must've been thinking along the same lines, for his grinning face appeared above the hole. "Do you think Father will be satisfied that we've learned our lesson if we return so soon?"

"I don't see why not," said Loki, beginning to hoist Rogers up to the hole. He was only barely shorter than Loki, but he weighed about as much as an Aesir child, so it was easily done. "If he thought this part would take longer than half a day, I suspect he would've had us pack more than shovels." Rogers was most of the way to the top when the hairs on the back of Loki's neck stood up. He stopped pulling for a second and squinted at the hole. "Is someone up there with you?"

"Of course not," said Thor, laughter still in his voice. "Why?"

Loki kept pulling. "I don't know." Rogers's head and shoulders reached the top, and Thor pulled him the rest of the way out. "I could've sworn I felt—"

Before he could finish his sentence or begin his own climb, there was a monstrous roar, a surprised shout, and then Loki had a brief glimpse of Thor being hurled out of view with enormous force.

* * *

Any guesses on what just attacked? :D

I will definitely take every possible opportunity to have Thor and Loki bicker like children. It's just so much fun. But, like Frigga said, they also make a pretty seamless team.

I like the idea of pre-character development Loki having a lot of respect for important Asgardian traditions like death rites for warriors, so it's something he tries not to be sarcastic about. I also wanted to make sure Thor wasn't the only one doing the heavy lifting. They both have super-strength compared to a human; Loki's just more inclined to use tricks than blows.

You may recall that Schmidt refers to his big Hydra ship as The Valkyrie. Since it makes no sense for that not to be in German, I'm using "die Walküre," and the boys can read it no matter what language it's in 'cause Allspeak. (I don't actually know any German, so if Google Translate did me wrong there, please let me know and I'll change it.) It's fun to keep giving Thor more reasons to hate this guy he missed out on killing.


	4. Frostbite

"Thor!" Loki yelled, inwardly cursing himself for lowering his guard against the possibility of foreign enchantments just because they were on Midgard. He gritted his teeth in a snarl, tossed the rope attached to Rogers aside, and seized the second rope tightly, then stood waiting, seidr at the ready. Whatever had just happened, it would only take a second or two before—

X

Thor opened his right hand as he tumbled through the air. He'd never seen anything like the creature that had just flung him off his feet—an enormous gray beast somewhere between a dog and a boar in shape, with tusks, spiny growths on its back, and a tail covered in horns—but it was about to learn who it was dealing with.

X

As he expected, Loki's feet abruptly left the floor of _die Walküre_ when the hammer attached to his rope shot towards Thor's hand. A second later, he was through the hole and into the open, and he was not alone. Frost Giants. Here, on Midgard. There were two of them, one male, half again his height, with bony ridges protruding from his head; the other no more than a head taller than him, female, with long white hair tied back in intricate braids. Both had ruby-red eyes and deep blue skin covered in strange lined patterns, and they wore only rough leathers.

Loki's surprise when he saw what was waiting for him outside did not prevent him from carrying out his plan. He waited until he was level with the taller Jotun, then three simulacra peeled off him, appearing to let go of the rope at the same time he did.

X

Mjolnir reached Thor's hand _after_ he hit the ground at the perfect angle and speed to plow through several yards of snow but _before_ the beast caught up with him. He rolled to his feet and swung upward just as a pair of massive jaws were coming down on him. Mjolnir caught the beast under the chin, snapping its mouth shut hard enough to shatter several teeth and knocking it back head over tail. It wasn't dead, but it was certainly down for the moment.

Thor brushed some snow off his shoulder, then yanked the dangling rope free of Mjolnir's handle. In doing so, he realized he was still carrying the shield. He made to return to the ship and Loki, but he saw that the beast wasn't alone. He had caught glimpses of Frost Giants on other realms—while they were barred from Midgard and Asgard according to the terms of the truce, they did trade with Alfheim and Vanaheim—but this was the first time he would meet one in battle. The one stomping towards him now was twice his height and formed a jagged club of ice around his fist as he approached. Thor smiled. This was going to be _fun_.

X

Using the momentum from Mjolnir, Loki plunged two daggers into the giant's chest while his copies distracted the woman. The giant howled and fell backwards. Loki rolled forward when he hit the ground and sprang right back up. He could see Thor from here, facing an even larger giant and a beast on which all three Jotnar could have ridden comfortably together. Was this all?

Now to deal with the woman. It was her seidr he'd felt just before the attack began, he was sure of it. She must have cloaked them, which was why Thor hadn't noticed they were there until they were upon him. She carried daggers too, though hers were made of ice. Loki raised his own, but then his copies transformed into images of her instead and turned on him. He chuckled. Did she think she could use his own tricks against him? He kept his eyes on the one in the middle, which lunged. Too obvious. He stayed where he was, feeling deeply smug. She had already switched places with one of the illusions before she altered them, so this one merely dissipated on impact with solid matter, and Loki used its cover to sweep his dagger at the next one. It struck home in a very real gut. She gasped and staggered back, and the remaining images flickered and died.

Loki made to close in and finish her off, but a spiked club of ice suddenly appeared in his periphery, and he was only able to sidestep far enough that it struck his right shoulder instead of his chest. Assuming that the male was down for good after his first strike had been a grave mistake. He screamed as the ice pierced his armor to tear through flesh and muscle, driving all the way through and into the wall of ice behind him.

X

"It has been too long since I last shed Asgardian blood," said the giant, stepping sideways now rather than continuing to approach Thor directly. "And here we thought the humans' war plane would be our most interesting find of the week."

"You are not allowed in this realm," said Thor, pointing at him with Mjolnir and mimicking his steps. If he thought he was going to trap Thor between himself and his pet beast, it was a trap Thor would enjoy springing.

He laughed. "Allowed? As if we've had any choice."

"If you've been here since the war, how has Heimdall never seen you?"

"You will hear none of our secrets from me. Let that mystery trouble your final thoughts as I kill you."

"Oh, is that what you're doing? I thought you were trying to talk me to death. I was beginning to think all the tales of the Jotnar's fierceness in the war were exaggerated."

The giant snarled in rage and lunged forward with his ice club. Thor raised the shield on his arm. The club shattered into a million particles of frost on the impact and the fist beneath it crumpled against the shield with multiple bone-cracking sounds, but if Thor had not watched it happen with his own eyes, he would have thought the blow had merely been a light tap. He laughed, realizing that he and Loki needn't have searched for Rogers's weapon; they had already found it.

X

The giant broke the ice spear off, leaving Loki where he was. The woman pulled the dagger out of her stomach and sauntered closer, smirking.

"What shall we do with you now, little Asgardian?" she said, stopping just beyond arm's reach.

"Release me, monster," Loki spat, fighting to keep his voice scornful despite the agony of his shoulder. Even if he was pinned like a fly to the wall, he had only to stall them long enough for Thor to return. "I am a son of Odin!"

Her blue face split in a sneer. "Even better. What ransom do you think the Allfather will pay to have you returned?"

"Three of you and your dog?" said Loki scornfully. He tried to shift the shard of ice with his hands, but it refused to budge and the attempt hurt too badly for him to want to try again. "You will never hold us, and by attacking my brother and me unprovoked, your lives are already forfeit."

" _Unprovoked_?!" she hissed.

X

In his jubilation over discovering what the shield could do, Thor didn't react quickly enough to the Jotun's other arm swinging around to grab him by the left shoulder, and he yelled as a cold like nothing he'd ever felt seared his flesh. It was worse than getting burned on Muspelheim. He swept the shield down, slicing a deep gash across the Jotun's forearm with its edge.

X

"This realm was in our grasp until you Asgardian butchers slaughtered us and stripped us of our sacred casket. We few who were separated from the army were left stranded, forced to eke out a miserable existence here after our gateway home was destroyed. What further provocation could we ask for?" Just thinking about it seemed to kindle her rage. Her mouth twisted into a snarl. "I've reconsidered. No ransom could be worth more than the pleasure of watching you die at my hand."

Before Loki could say or do anything to dissuade her, she stepped forward and seized him by the throat. Her touch was colder than anything he had ever felt in his life, including the ice spear through his shoulder, which was of that same dense ice—he should have realized what it meant; how could he have been so _stupid_ —but the searing pain he expected failed to come. Instead, an odd tingling sensation swept outward from where her fingers held, up over his face and down across his chest and beyond. Her red eyes widened in shock, and then she began to laugh. She laughed so hard that she didn't notice the dagger he had conjured in his left hand.

X

The Jotun reeled back from the cut, giving Thor enough time to glance at the blackened skin of his shoulder, which still burned like it was on fire. The Jotun closed in again, and a snorting sound behind him gave him a second's warning. He raised Mjolnir high and brought it slamming down in front of him. A blast of lightning exploded from the hammer, electrocuting both the giant and the beast and flinging them outward while creating a crack in the ice that raced in both directions.

X

"You are no son of Odin," said the giantess, hand still on Loki's throat. A crash of thunder and sudden shifting of the ground made both Jotnar spin around, and he used their distraction to slash his dagger up and across, slicing cleanly through his captor's throat. Her wounded companion, still watching whatever was happening with Thor, the beast, and the third giant, turned at the sound of her surprised gurgle, and he shouted in fury. Loki was still pinned in place by the spear of ice, leaving him helpless to the attack. But a blur of golden hair and billowing red cape hurtled out of nowhere before any blow could land, and one swing of Mjolnir sent him flying through the air until he crumpled back to the snow, unmoving.

"Loki!" Thor cried, spinning to face him. Then he recoiled, looking just as surprised as the Jotun witch had after she touched him. "What fell magic is this? Why do you look like one of them?"

"What are you talking about?" said Loki. "I look—" but he broke off, belatedly registering the color of the hand that had swung the dagger. He raised both hands in front of him, and his eyes widened. It must be a trick. They were his hands, but they were Jotun blue. As he stared, however, pale pink reappeared at his fingertips and spread, accompanied by that same tingling sensation from before. _"You are no son of Odin_." The pieces clicked ruthlessly together in his protesting mind, and he felt as though a bottomless pit was opening up beneath him.

Magic hadn't made him appear Jotun. It had made him appear Aesir.

He looked up at Thor—Thor, who was always laughably transparent in his moods, who was now impossible to read. "Brother?" It came out plaintive, uncertain.

Thor's expression didn't change. He drew closer, stepped over the blood-stained corpse, and reached up. Loki flinched, but Thor only braced his shoulder with one hand and gripped the conical shard of ice with the other. Still looking very grim, he raised his eyebrows in question. Loki shut his eyes tight and nodded. In one move, Thor wrenched the ice back out. It hurt just as much coming out as it had going in, and Loki screamed again, pain blanking out all else for a moment. When awareness returned, he found that Thor's hands had prevented him from crumpling to the ground. "Are you well? Can you stand?"

Though blood was soaking his clothing and armor and he could feel the cold wind in his wound, Loki found his feet beneath him and nodded mutely. Two days ago, he had been furious with Thor for failing to ask those kinds of questions before leaping into action. Today, he would give anything for another stupid, high-handed demonstration. Anything that would tell him what Thor was thinking.

The ground shuddered again. A few paces to the left, the frozen body of Steven Rogers, which was still propped up against the ice where Thor had left it before the attack, toppled over sideways with a dull _thud_ that made both of them wince.

"Come," said Thor. "We should return."

* * *

This is gonna be a lot of commentary, so skip it if you feel like it, but I suspect there might be a lot of stuff readers might be confused about. Before I get to that, I just want to say that I think this is my favorite fight sequence I've ever written. Thor and Loki's powers are extremely fun to play with, especially when Thor also has Cap's shield.

Okay so three Frost Giants and a Frost Beast being on Earth were not just a contrivance to reveal Loki's origins. I mean, that was part of it, but they were also there to fill some plot holes, because there are so many things about the logistics of Steve's crash that make no sense. First of all, why did _die Walküre_ 's flight path include Greenland? If you're only going from Germany to New York, the Arctic Circle would be a massive detour, which kinda defeats the purpose of getting to the cities you want to destroy as fast as possible. But even if we ignore that, the rest is still a mess. How did all that ice get *inside* the plane even though the windows didn't break? If Steve was knocked unconscious by the crash, are we really supposed to believe he didn't wake up in the several hours before he would've started to freeze? And either way, how did he end up lying in coffin position when he froze, when it's super unlikely that that's how he would've landed after getting thrown against the windows by the crash? If he was encased in ice, does that mean he was first encased in water? Does that mean he drowned before he froze? You get the idea. It's much easier if a few stranded Frost Giants just happened upon the freshly crashed ship and froze it in case it was a threat to them. I imagine that's what they do to any human or vehicle that gets too close, and the reason Heimdall never spotted them is that the lady Jotun has been keeping them cloaked. Which is also why Heimdall thought Steve was dead.

I think it's not only possible but _likely_ that a few Frost Giants here and there got stranded on Earth after the war with Asgard, and since they live about as long as Asgardians, they'd be stuck living as scavengers in the far north for centuries and centuries. Also, for a new war between Asgard and Jotunheim (like the one Thor started and Loki tried to finish) to even be possible, the Jotnar must have some way of traveling between worlds. If they're trapped on Jotunheim, they are not a threat to anyone, no matter whose bratty kids attack who or how angry it makes them. So to take care of that, I decided Jotunheim has designated gateways to other realms. These are less awesome than the Bifrost because each one can only go to a single world, and probably only a specific area on that world. Odin made sure their Midgard gateway was destroyed because they abused their access.

I also wanted to account for Loki having hair and being not at all giant-sized, so I decided that size and magical aptitude have an inverse relationship for Frost Giants. The smaller they are, the more powerful their magic is, and the more likely it is that they have hair, but small, hairy, magical Jotuns are uncommon. So the female Jotun in this chapter is pretty much the same as Loki in these respects, though not quite as small as him. I still haven't settled on how I want to explain Laufey's abandonment of Loki. The three options I'm debating are 1: male runts are deemed worthless because size is the most important quality for this warrior culture (this is the one canon seems to imply), 2: he's illegitimate (this is the one that's apocryphal canon because it's straight-up stated in deleted scenes), or 3: he was meant to be a ritual sacrifice in a gruesome attempt to turn the tide of the war. I am open to suggestions, but keep in mind that I'm not writing a version were Odin is the worst. Whatever his motives were, he didn't just *steal* a baby who was already wanted and loved.

Anyway I have this really funny mental image of how this would look in movie form. Thor and Loki are having a super tense moment of disillusionment, and then the camera pans out to remind you that Frozen Steve has been there the whole time. (Don't worry, he didn't break when he fell over.)

Also, super dense ice is actually a thing. It turns out there are like seventeen different crystalline structures ice can have, and not all of them would float in water like normal ice. I've decided that what the Frost Giants make is one of the coldest, densest structures. Just for fun.


	5. Fear Is the Enemy of Love

Sif was dreadfully bored. Fandral was off with his latest fair maiden somewhere, Hogun and Volstagg were with their families, and Thor and Loki were off in Midgard. She tried to occupy herself by sparring with Einherjar recruits, but they didn't provide much of a challenge and so could not hold her interest. After only three bouts, she made her way to the Observatory instead.

"That did not take long," said Heimdall, arching an eyebrow at her.

"What did not take long?"

"The princes departed but three hours ago. Do you miss Thor already?"

She blushed. "Can I not simply come to gaze out at Yggdrasil with my brother?"

"I would be glad of your company, as always."

He kept one hand on Hofund's hilt and they sat side-by-side on its plinth. Any time Sif saw Heimdall when others were present, he was always standing at attention. Only when it was just the two of them would he relax. To the rest of Asgard, Heimdall was the inscrutable, all-seeing Gatekeeper. To Sif, he was a warm and affectionate brother, and around him, she did not feel the need to be quite so fierce. As a little girl, she had taken any opportunity she could to come and listen to him tell stories of the people he saw worlds away. In recent centuries, it had been happening less and less often. She was sorry for that.

"You haven't tried very hard to restore your hair to its natural color," he observed.

Sif scowled and wouldn't look at him, and she flipped her black hair over her shoulders so she wouldn't have to look at it either.

"It's alright to admit you prefer it this way."

"I do not _prefer_ it this way!"

"Have my eyes deceived me then?" he said. She glared at him. He looked far too amused. As dearly as she loved Heimdall, having a brother who could see every soul in the Nine Realms made it very difficult to keep secrets.

"Whether I prefer it this way or not, it was still a vile trick for Loki to play on me. Mother cried when she saw me yesterday because she was sure it would've worn off in Muspelheim. But you can't say anything to him. If he knows I like it, he'll be unbearably smug about it for at least a century."

"Your secrets are safe with me," he said. And that, at least, was true. After a pause, he asked, "Do you wish to know how Thor fares?"

"He _has_ only been gone three hours...," said Sif. She grimaced and gave in. "Yes."

"They have found the Midgardian warrior."

"So soon!"

Heimdall looked at her in a way that made her feel far younger than she was. "You have loved Thor since you were a child. You give him your counsel on every subject and fight at his side in every battle, yet you conceal your true feelings from him. I would see you happy, Sister."

"He does not feel the same," said Sif reluctantly. "The last thing I want in all the Nine Realms is to put a strain on our friendship."

"He may not feel the same as yet, but do not be so certain he could never return your love. He is young and too full of dreams of battle to see that his childhood friend has grown into a beautiful woman as well as a warrior. You need only help him open his eyes."

She leaned against his shoulder, fear and hope rising up in her in equal measure. "Must you always be so wise?"

He chuckled, wrapped his arm around her, and kissed the top of her head. She sat there with him, looking out at the stars while her mind traveled back through the centuries. Several of the boys their age and most of the girls had teased her for wanting to become a great warrior. After the fall of the Valkyries, though there might still be shieldmaidens of older generations among the Einherjar, most parents began discouraging their daughters from following that path any farther than a basic level of weapons proficiency, particularly the nobility. But Thor, who couldn't imagine anyone _not_ wanting to become a great warrior, had thought it the most natural thing in the world.

 _"_ _You don't think I should study to be a healer or a great scholar like a proper lady? Everyone else says so."_

 _"_ _Well they're all fools! When girls spend all their time studying to be proper ladies, they forget how to have fun!"_

They'd only been children at the time, Thor nearly three hundred years old and Sif closer to two hundred and fifty, but she'd loved him from that day forward. "Tell me about the Midgardian warrior," she said. "Thor told us the Allfather ordered his retrieval on your behalf when he explained that he and Loki were going to Midgard alone. I can't remember the last time you made such a request."

"I have only done so a few times in all my—" But he broke off and stood abruptly.

"What's wrong?" said Sif, getting up as well.

"I cannot see them."

"What?" she said, alarmed. "But they're only on Midgard! You must send me to where you last saw them at once!"

"No," said Heimdall. "That is not for me to decide."

"But—"

"I know what you are thinking, but I did not see them attacked. I do not believe they are dead, but something has blocked them from my sight. Go to the king, quickly."

Sif could argue with her brother, but not with the Gatekeeper of Asgard. She turned and sprinted to her horse.

X

Odin was in the midst of arranging for further aid to be sent to eastern Vanaheim, which was caught in a worsening drought, when Lady Sif entered the hall. The Vanir ambassadors and Aesir courtiers present were all startled at her arrival, several even looking offended, but Odin stood, frowning. The young woman he hoped would someday become his daughter-in-law was a strict observer of decorum in these halls, but it now appeared to be costing her all her restraint not to break into a run as she approached the throne. She knelt at the base of the steps and put fist to heart. "Allfather, the Gatekeeper has sent me."

"Speak quickly, Lady Sif," said Odin.

"The princes have been lost to his view."

Odin touched an arm of Hlidskjalf to conjure an image of Midgard at the point where Heimdall had opened the Bifrost, something he had already done once or twice this morning, during the duller portions of his audiences. It warmed his heart to see his sons working together, and he would never admit this to them, but their bickering often amused him, at least when there was nothing stronger than petty irritation behind it. But now, the image showed nothing but snow. No trace of his sons, or even of the Midgardian craft.

Hlidskjalf never failed to display anything at a location Odin wished to survey, living, dead, or inert. If Thor and Loki were not visible through it now, then it was because they were hidden.

Before he could order Sleipnir saddled and sent to him, the image rippled and cleared. Thor and Loki stood on a field of snow and ice, along with three slain Jotnar and their Frost Beast.

"Find Eir and have her ready the healing room," he told Sif as he descended the golden steps, Gungnir in hand. "Both of them will need it." Then he sent Hugin to the stables and Munin to Frigga. The Vanir would have to wait.

X

Loki was leaving a trail of blood in the snow on the way to the Bifrost site. Thor, frostbitten shoulder paining him terribly, had to steady him multiple times. He would carry him the second he actually fell or if he asked, but not before. The frozen Steven Rogers trailed along behind them. Thor had laid him atop his shield and now pulled him across the frozen ground using the rope, which was a much less awkward solution than carrying him.

Thor still did not know why Loki had briefly looked like a Frost Giant. All he knew was that Loki wasn't acting the way he normally would if it had been some trick. But perhaps it had been the Jotun witch's trick, not Loki's. She might've done it hoping that Thor would mistake his brother for the enemy. That made sense, except that the fool hadn't even changed his features, his hair, or his clothing! Pathetic. Loki could work better illusions than that in his sleep.

This seemed a satisfactory explanation, excepting the fact that _Loki_ had apparently believed the illusion would work, and that Thor would attack him. He had never flinched away from him before, as though he was afraid of him. Thor ought to knock him soundly about the head for that once he was well again. There was also the horror he'd seen on Loki's face as it turned back from blue to its usual color. Thor would probably be horrified to find out he looked like a Frost Giant too, but it was only a trick, so what did it matter? However, the moment to ask about it was probably not when Loki was bleeding out and they were far from home.

They didn't even need to call for Heimdall; no sooner had they reached the design that had been seared through the snow when they arrived than the bridge formed anew and sucked them into it.

X

Odin reached the Observatory on Sleipnir within ten minutes, just in time to see Heimdall raise Hofund to activate the Bifrost. In another moment, Thor and Loki fell out of it, along with the frozen Midgardian. Loki's wound had looked bad enough from Hlidskjalf, but he was now chalk-white and covered in blood.

"Fath—"

"Thor, go straight to the healing room for that burn. Men of the Einherjar lost limbs to the touch of Jotnar in the war when it went untreated. I'll take Loki on Sleipnir." Thor knew the eight-legged stallion could outstrip Mjolnir easily, so he obeyed, casting one glance back at Loki before departing. Loki wobbled on his feet, and then his eyes rolled up in his head. It was just enough warning for Odin to catch him before he hit the floor.

"My king, the Midgardian lives!" said Heimdall, crouching to place a hand on the man's chest.

"Then he will need the healing room as well," said Odin impatiently. He could not have cared less about a Midgardian at this moment, or anyone else—not with both his sons injured after what should have been a very uneventful trip to a very uneventful realm. "I will send someone for him." He swept Loki with him onto Sleipnir and they were off.

Loki laughed. There was more than a hint of hysteria in it. He was probably going into shock. "It can't be true, then," he murmured. "I was so afraid."

"What can't be true?" said Odin, frowning.

"I looked like a Jotun, and she said—but you would not do this for one of them."

Odin closed his eye. "Oh, Loki. How I hoped this day would never come."

Loki didn't respond. He had lost consciousness. But Odin knew that now that particular door had been cracked open, there was no shutting it again.

Lady Sif was waiting outside the healing room when Odin carried Loki to it. "Eir is ready for them, Allfather," she said faintly, staring at Loki's wound.

"Thank you, Lady Sif," said Odin. "Please arrange transportation here for the Midgardian. He is frozen but apparently alive. We left him with Heimdall."

"Yes, my king."

"Loki!" Frigga had just appeared at the end of the corridor, and she held up her skirts and ran to them as Odin entered the healing room.

"What happened?" said Eir, gesturing for him to follow.

"Thor and Loki ran afoul of three Frost Giants on Midgard." They reached the Soul Forge. Odin laid Loki upon it and stood back so Eir and her apprentices could begin their work.

"What?!" said Frigga. "But how could they be there?"

"Remnants from the war. We would be lucky if they were the only ones, especially if they have more seidkonur to cloak them from Heimdall and Hlidskjalf."

"But the truce—"

"It was not a breach if they were already there before it was made," said Odin. He led Frigga away. Eir, being the royal healer, had of course known Loki's true origins from the start, but that did not mean she needed to be part of this conversation.

"What is it?"

"Loki knows what he is, or at least he suspects it," said Odin.

The concern on Frigga's face intensified. "How?"

"It appears one of the Jotnar managed to lift his glamour, if only for a moment."

"Then you will have to tell him the truth!"

"I thought it might be better coming from you."

Frigga unleashed the full force of her glare on him. "Odin Borson, you have avoided this conversation for nearly a thousand years. You do not get to hand it off to me now that it is upon you. You were the one who brought him back from Jotunheim; it has to be you who tells him."

Odin grimaced. "He will despise me."

"He might, for a while," said Frigga. "But this is about what he deserves to know, not your comfort." She cupped his face in her hands and pressed a firm kiss to his lips, as though she was seeing him off before a battle. A fitting metaphor, though he couldn't remember feeling this much trepidation before any battle. "Just remember to speak with him as a father, not as a king."

"I suppose Thor will have to be told as well, assuming he hasn't already seen."

"Even if he hasn't, we're not telling Loki and leaving Thor in the dark," she said sternly. "Loki will need support from his entire family now. I will speak to Thor."

* * *

I used to just assume that Asgardians grew up as fast as humans but then their aging slowed way the heck down as adults, but I kind of love the idea of them getting to be kids for so long, so that's what I'm going with. Which means Sif and Thor were about the equivalent of 10 and 12 in that memory. Of course, this means there's no easy way to account for Thor's snake story, in which he and Loki were both eight. I don't really think it's in character for him to translate his age into human years just to accommodate Bruce, but that might be the only thing that makes sense.

I decided to make Sif and Heimdall half-siblings in this fic pretty much entirely so I could write the scene with them sitting together in the Observatory. They both seem like they could benefit from having someone they can relax around, and Heimdall would make *such* a good big brother.

Okay so we're getting closer to actually dealing with Loki's heritage. On the whole, I'm essentially taking a "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" approach with Odin's parenting fails. I don't think he maliciously hid the truth from Loki or deliberately showed a preference for Thor, he just didn't want to hurt Loki with the truth and he failed to notice that Loki felt neglected, partly because Loki probably concealed his feelings and caused more mischief. I think he loved Loki very much, but he made a couple of major mistakes, and then circumstance and Loki's choices ruined any possibility of repairing the damage.


	6. Snow Lilies

When Thor arrived at the healing room, it was all in commotion with people tending to Loki. He tried to get a look at what they were doing to help him, but a soft hand touched his arm before he could get near the Soul Forge. He looked around to find his mother standing there. "Will Loki be alright?" he asked.

She smiled. "Of course. It is not a minor wound, but Eir is well equipped to take care of him. Come. I have what you need for your burn." She held up a golden pot of some foul-smelling salve and pulled on his arm. He walked with her back into the corridor.

"This will not be pleasant," she said. She scooped some of the salve into her hand and rubbed it on Thor's shoulder. He grimaced as the cold burning sensation briefly worsened and the acrid smell of it stung his nose, but he held still until she had finished. "You'll need more of that every hour until the skin is no longer blackened."

He thought she might hand him the pot and try to send him off somewhere while she went back to watch over Loki, but instead she put a hand in the crook of his arm and began walking down the corridor. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"To my garden," she said. "There is something we must discuss."

"Your garden?" said Thor, surprised. He knew Loki spent a lot of time with her there, but he'd been uneasy about setting foot in it ever since he had "picked" flowers for her from it as a boy—meaning that he'd pulled up three of her prized rose bushes from Alfheim and proudly presented them to her.

"Yes," said Frigga. "It's a lovely day, and I wish us not to be disturbed."

The healing hall was on the same side of the palace as the gardens, so it only took a few minutes to reach them. They walked past the healer's garden, the kitchen garden, and the apple orchard. The Queen's private garden was the most beautiful place on Asgard. She grew flowers from several different realms there, and there were even a few from planets that lay outside Asgard's protection. Thor stared around in amazement at the sheer variety of colors before him. Some of the flowers grew in simple beds; others—the most exotic-looking ones—were encased in fields of gold that maintained their alien habitats. Sometimes the soil inside was a different color, or even the air.

"Would you like to see my favorite one?"

He nodded, and she led him to the center of the garden. The gold enclosure she brought him to was dark with simulated night, and snow fell inside it onto tall, coiling plants with large flowers that seemed to be made of crystal. The plants gave off a faint glow, but the flowers were particularly bright, gleaming in shades of purple and blue.

"They are beautiful," said Thor, moving right up to the edge of the protective field. He might've thought them ice sculptures, except that they were far too intricate to have come from even the most skilled sculptor's hand.

"Snow lilies," said Frigga. "They were a gift from Queen Farbauti of Jotunheim, before the war began, at a point when it seemed we might avoid it."

"Jotunheim?" said Thor, gaping at her for a moment before looking at the flowers again. "I did not know there was plantlife there at all, let alone anything like this."

"Oh, yes. None of ours would survive in that climate, of course, but the native flora of Jotenheim requires far less sunlight and produces enough internal heat to melt the ice around it into liquid water. The water travels up to the petals, then re-freezes. That is what gives these flowers their crystalline appearance." She sat down on a golden bench beside the snow lilies' enclosure. "Now," she said, smoothing her skirts over her knees. "Tell me what happened on Midgard. I want to hear of your battle."

Thor snorted. "Three Frost Giants and a beast are hardly a battle, Mother." But he told her, using wide hand gestures and Mjolnir to illustrate. As always, she was a very good audience. When he got to the part about flying back to save Loki from an attack just in time, however, he faltered. Perhaps she would be able to explain what had happened, even though she hadn't seen it. "When I looked at Loki, his eyes were red and his skin blue and lined like a Jotun's. He went back to normal after a moment, but he was just as surprised to see it as I was. Is that something their magic can do? Make us look like them?"

"Illusion magic can make anything look like anything else," said Frigga in that overly patient tone she used whenever he revealed how little of an impact his lessons about seidr had had on him. "But what you saw was not an illusion." She paused and looked him straight in the eyes. "Loki is Jotun."

"What? But that's impossible!" said Thor, laughing. "How can he be Jotun if he's my brother?"

Frigga raised her eyebrows. Thor realized what she was getting at and his heart seemed to twist in his chest. The smile melted off his face.

"He's...not my brother?"

She stood and clasped his hands in hers. "In the sense that matters least, no. He is not."

"But Frost Giants are uncivilized monsters," Thor protested, "and Loki is...well, _Loki_! He's the cleverest person I know, the best at seidrcraft, and he knows diplomacy better than I ever will! How can _he_ be one of them?"

"These are not traits unique to the Aesir, Thor," said Frigga, and the sharpness of her tone took him aback. He stared at her, and she suddenly looked very sad. She turned to face the snow lilies, putting a hand through the field to touch one of the flowers. "The war between us and the Jotnar was long and bloody, and it was preceded by millennia of simmering tension and skirmishes. These things have a way of twisting society's perspective."

"Twisting it? But you've heard the tales of their savagery as often as I have from Einherjar and shieldmaidens who witnessed it themselves. From _Father_."

She withdrew her hand and turned back to him. "Those tales are of the war itself, not the everyday citizens of Jotunheim. It is a distinction far too few of us recognize because it is _easier_ not to. The Jotnar love and laugh and mourn their dead just as we do, and what tales do you think they tell of us? We who crushed their armies and took their most powerful artifact from them, leaving them a ruin of what they once were?"

"What? You speak as if they did not earn their fate!" said Thor, too confused that his mother was the one saying these things to be as angry as he would have been if he'd been hearing them from anyone else.

"No, I am only trying to show you their perspective. They _did_ try to conquer Midgard, and would have laid waste to all life there if they had succeeded. From there, they would have gained a foothold to extend their conquest farther throughout Yggdrasil. I do not claim that it was not a necessary war. But it was the consequence of a king's ambition, not his people's inherent nature. Had a different man than Laufey been king, we might now be allies."

Thor blinked.

"They may have a harsh culture to match their harsh climate and they may differ from us in appearance, but simply being Jotnar does not make them monsters. I am no more surprised that a child as exceptional as Loki could come from Jotunheim as I am that flowers such as these could grow there, and it is their great loss and our immeasurable gain that Laufey did not wish to keep him."

"Laufey? He's Laufey's son?" Thor sat down on the bench, feeling dazed. "How did he come to be with us?"

"Your father found him at the end of the war. He'd been abandoned in one of their temples."

Thor frowned. "Why does all of Asgard believe he is your son by birth? Surely they would have noticed that you weren't with child."

"We were fortunate in that regard. I had been ill for a few months leading up to your father's return from Jotunheim, so it was easy to convince the court and the people that the illness was a difficult pregnancy, and that we had avoided announcing it with the outcome so uncertain. Several of the servants knew he was not my birth son, but only Eir and Heimdall knew he was Jotun."

Thor found that oddly reassuring. "Was it strange to suddenly have another son? Was it ever difficult to think of him as your own?"

Frigga smiled, her gaze distant. "I loved Loki from the moment I first saw him," she said. "But I couldn't help worrying that his Jotun mother might be mourning his loss, even if his father did not. Though it would have broken my heart to give him back, I had to know that we weren't stealing him from a loving home. I asked Heimdall what he had seen of him before Odin found him. If he was wanted."

Even though Thor knew the outcome, hearing this made him nervous, as though even now, someone could come and take Loki away. "And was he?" he asked.

"Heimdall showed me Loki's first days of life. In the two days between his birth and when Odin found him, no kindly face had looked on him. No gentle hand had held him. No name had been given him. Laufey already had two sons who were the 'proper' size, and he was ashamed to have sired such a tiny boy. He ordered him taken away to die. I don't know that Loki would have lasted another day. I still have nightmares about what could have become of him if not for us."

"He was left to die for being too small?" said Thor, appalled. "How can you say they are not monstrous if they can do such a thing?"

" _They_ did not. Laufey did. You cannot have it both ways, Thor. Either the Frost Giants are monsters, which would include your brother, or else they are all intelligent beings capable of choosing good or evil."

"But surely being raised with us would have made Loki different."

"If Frost Giants are born monsters, then even the best upbringing would not be able to reach them."

Thor frowned. He didn't have a counter to that, and it was all a great deal to take in. But he could think about that later. "Does Loki know?"

"Not yet," said Frigga. She gave a deep sigh. "He may suspect, after what you both saw on Midgard. Your father will speak to him when he wakes, if he is well enough. I fear this will be very difficult for him."

"How did I react when Father brought him home?"

Her eyes sparkled with amusement. "You were quite curious about the strange new baby living in the nursery with you. You had never had to share my attention with anyone before, so you were jealous some of the time. You were also very impatient for him to learn how to walk so that he could play with you. I explained to you that you were a big brother now, and that meant being a protector and an example. You took your new role very seriously."

Thor grinned, feeling rather proud of his toddler self.

"You might not remember this, but Loki was plagued with nightmares when he was very small. It's possible that being alone in the dark stirred some half-faded memories of Jotunheim in him. He would cry until he was in my arms, and even then he could not sleep again for hours. One night, I went to check on him, and I found you curled around him, both of you sleeping peacefully."

"I remember doing that," said Thor, brow furrowed. They were dim memories. He couldn't have been older than forty or fifty. "Not that time, but when we were old enough to have our own chambers, sometimes I'd hear him crying and I'd go to his room, or he'd come to mine and shake me awake. I never knew what his nightmares were about, and I'm not sure he did either."

Frigga joined Thor on the bench and took his hands again. "I hope that knowing these things will not change how you feel about him."

"He is my brother. Nothing will ever change that."

She smiled, her eyes rather wet, and leaned close to kiss him on the cheek.

* * *

I realized after I'd written the dialogue that I hadn't really done anything useful or interesting with the setting of Frigga's garden, which is why I came up with snow lilies. I was having trouble imagining how there could be life on a frozen planet like Jotunheim, but plants adapted to the cold (and probably a bit magical) would certainly help. So just how the plants I've described generate their own heat, I think Frost Giants might have much higher core body temperatures than beings from more temperate climates, and their frostbite touch is when they steal heat from others.

The bit about little Thor trying to pick flowers for Frigga but pulling up her rose bushes instead is actually based on my life. I was very little and didn't understand the difference between the wildflowers growing in the yard and the flowers my mom was carefully raising in the flowerbed. Whoops!

Next chapter will be Odin's conversation with Loki. At first I was worried that things might get repetitive, but I don't think Thor and Loki are interested in the same aspects of the story.

Oh, and more on Asgardian aging. I'm kind of imagining an exponential decrease in the speed at which they age compared to us. So pregnancies take about the same amount of time as human ones, and babies might take a couple years longer to become toddlers, but then it starts slowing down a lot more, so they'd be the equivalent of about five human years old by the time they're fifty.


	7. Son of Odin

When Loki woke, he was confused to find himself in the healing hall instead of his own chambers. Then he tried to roll over, only for pain to shoot outward from his shoulder. Ah, yes. The trip to Midgard, the frozen soldier, and the Frost Giants. He had underestimated his foes and been skewered through the shoulder as a result. He prodded gingerly at the spot where the ice had stabbed him. It was heavily bandaged, and he could feel a salve at work inside the wound. He was no healer himself, but he'd read enough books on the subject to be able to estimate that it would take no more than two days for his flesh to knit back together, and the awful metallic taste in his mouth meant he must have been given blood replenishing potions while he slept.

Having taken stock of his wound, he turned his attention to another, more troubling matter. He flexed his hands in front of him, carefully examining the skin. Definitely Aesir. He felt for those lines he'd seen, but there was nothing. It had to have been a trick, and the pain had made him fall for it.

"Leave us."

Loki looked around to see his father near the door, waiting as the three apprentice healers filed swiftly from the room. Once they were gone and the door shut behind them, Odin walked towards him. Loki tried to sit up, but the effort made his vision swim.

"Do not trouble yourself," said Odin, raising a hand. He reached Loki's bedside and took the seat there. Loki ceased his efforts and lay back, but he did not fully relax. Father was not normally one for sickbed visits. "I'm glad to see that you are mending, my son. Will you tell me of your time on Midgard?"

"Has Thor not already done so?" said Loki, confused. Judging by the quality of the light coming through the windows, it was nearly sunset. Thor rarely required prompting before regaling Father with his tales of valor, and it never took him this many hours to find an opportunity for it. And if not Thor, then what of Hlidskjalf or Heimdall?

"I would hear of it from you," said Odin. "I saw the aftermath of the battle through Hlidskjalf, once the cloaking magic faded. The image suggested you and Thor were separated during the fight."

"We were," said Loki. So he recounted his side of it. He was somewhat distracted in the telling by his father's nods and appreciative chuckles when he described himself doing something clever, such as his use of Mjolnir's movement to gain momentum for his own attack and not falling for the Jotun's trick with his illusions. It wasn't that Odin never seemed impressed with his accomplishments, but Thor tended to draw all attention to himself to the point where Loki's tricks and strategies became something of an afterthought, even if they had played an equal or greater part in winning the day.

When Loki arrived at the point where the Jotun woman had decided she would kill him as vengeance for the war, Odin's expression turned livid. "Laufey is fortunate they were acting alone, long separated from their people, and that they failed," he said, teeth bared. "What did she do then?"

Loki hesitated. He had hoped to leave this part out, but with Odin's fierce eye upon him, a suitable lie or evasion failed to occur to him. "She put her hand on my throat. I've never felt cold like that before, but it didn't hurt. At first, she was surprised, but then she laughed. She said…" He swallowed and looked down at his hands, remembering what they had looked like after that. "She said I was no son of Odin."

"You fear she spoke the truth."

"Did she?" Loki shot at him before he could stop himself. It was only a jest to cover how afraid he truly was, but the sad, weary look in Odin's eye brought the sensation of a pit opening beneath him rushing back. "It's true?"

"It is true that Frigga and I are not your parents by birth."

Fear gave way to despair. "I'm one of them, aren't I? A Jotun."

"Is that such a terrible thing? Being Jotun saved your life this morning."

Loki laughed. He tasted bile and his entire body felt numb. "Better to die one of the Aesir than live as the monster parents tell their children about at night."

"You are not a monster, Loki." Odin sighed. "If anything, it is the line of Buri that are monsters, and you are better off not being bound to us by blood. If Thor does not have to struggle as hard as I have to be a good man, it will be because half of him is Frigga."

"So what am I, then?" said Loki, refusing to be distracted by the absurd notion that Odin felt no pride in his own blood. "A political hostage? A pet? An experiment to see if an Asgardian upbringing can civilize a Frost Giant? Or merely another stolen relic like the Casket?"

"You're my son," said Odin firmly. "Second Prince and proven warrior of Asgard. Heir presumptive to the throne. Master of seidrcraft. Brilliant and learned scholar and strategist. None of that has changed. With your many gifts, you might have been the making of Jotunheim, had Laufey not been such a vain and short-sighted fool."

"Laufey? But then—"

"Yes. You were born the third son of the King Laufey and Queen Farbauti."

"Still of royal blood, then?" Loki snorted, as though that did not make this even worse. "Loki Laufeyson."

"No! Laufeyson should have been your name by right of birth, but he denied you it and refused to give you a name of your own. He forfeited any claim he might have had over you as a father when he cast you aside to starve for the crime of being born _too small_."

Loki had never heard Odin speak with such contempt, but it did not soothe the hurt of learning that the creature who sired him had judged him too shameful and worthless to live. He _hated_ that Laufey had any power over him to cause this hurt. "And how did you acquire an enemy king's deformed castoff? I suppose I couldn't have been a political hostage or a trophy if Laufey already didn't want me, which leaves experiment or pet."

"Stop this, Loki!" said Odin, and before Loki saw him move, he had a hand around the back of his neck and was forcing him to make eye contact. "You attempt to bait me into giving truth to your unfounded self-hatred, but I am not so easily led. You _will_ hear me."

Loki grimaced, unsuccessfully fighting a sudden rush of tears. "Yes, _my King_."

There was a long pause in which Odin slowly withdrew his arm and ran his hand over his own face. "I courted war for millennia," he said at last, "in the tradition set by my grandfather and upheld by my father and my elder brothers. Long after they fell in battle, I eagerly carried on that legacy. We were unstoppable, and I believed that meant there was no reason to stop. We spilt oceans of blood in the name of Asgard. When legitimate existential threats arose from within Yggdrasil and without, we would of course quell them, but how different is one tyrant from another to the people on whom he treads?" He stood and walked to the nearest window, gazing out at the city that was the crown jewel of the Nine Realms. "Asgard has become something better in your lifetime, I think. Now we fight to protect the weak and the innocent, where once we sought to conquer and rule them."

"Why the change?" said Loki. As easily as he had dismissed this kind of talk at first, he couldn't help being a little curious now. Odin had never spoken of the past as though there were parts of it he was ashamed to remember. The rest of Asgard certainly didn't speak of it that way. Not that Loki had the faintest idea what any of it had to do with him.

"It began with Frigga. She made me want to be a better man, and to win her heart and hand, I had to become one. But that was a gradual change, and it still seemed that war would be a constant, even if I took care to lead my people into battle only for the right reasons. We had Thor when the war with Jotunheim for the fate of Midgard was at its peak, and I feared what his life would be. The first time I felt hope that the future might hold anything other than war was the day I lost my eye...and gained my second son."

Loki stared at him, dumbstruck. His chest suddenly felt very tight, as did his throat. He'd spent this entire conversation so far wishing that the bottomless pit would simply swallow him, but now he desperately wanted Odin to continue.

"When I held you in my hands inside the temple on Jotunheim, you smiled at me, and then, though you were only days old, you changed your appearance to mimic what you saw before you."

"What? Then... _I_ did this?" said Loki, looking at his hands. He'd been prepared to hurl the accusation that Odin had used his own skin to lie to him, and so was completely blindsided by the revelation that it had been his own doing. "It wasn't you?"

"It was you, Loki. You crafted your Aesir skin, taking me for a model." He chuckled, his one eye crinkling. "Considering the state I was in, that could have gone very poorly, but your seidr was already remarkably strong. You did it instinctively. Your first act of mischief, and you won a smile out of me for it when I thought I might never have cause to smile again. After that, I couldn't bring myself to leave you there, nor to give you into anyone else's care. With the capture of the Casket of Ancient Winters and the destruction of the Frost Giants' gateway to Midgard, the war was won. I brought you home, where you charmed Frigga and Thor as easily as you'd charmed me."

"So you kept me because I amused you," said Loki. The jab was a feeble one; in spite of himself, he wanted to believe the sentimental tale was true. Odin seemed to realize his heart wasn't in it, for his rebuke came gently.

"Do not twist my words. Thor is the son we were given. You are the son we chose, and we have loved you as our son from the first."

Fresh indignation welled up at that. "Then why show Thor such favor? If I am as much your son as he, why give him Mjolnir when he came of age and throw a feast every time he swings it? You never even considered me to wield it!"

Odin raised his eyebrows. "You think I did not watch you as boys and see which weapons you preferred? Thor was given Mjolnir because it suited him perfectly. He fights like a battering ram, throwing himself directly at his enemies with tremendous force. You favor quick movements, careful deception, and calculated strikes. Where, precisely, does a cumbersome warhammer fit into such a strategy?"

Loki opened his mouth, then shut it again. He knew perfectly well that Mjolnir would have been a poor fit for him, but it seemed childish to admit that he still wished he had been offered it. He had felt overlooked when Mjolnir went straight to Thor. It hadn't occurred to him that Odin had simply understood that it didn't match his style. When he came of age two decades after Thor, Odin and Frigga had presented him with a set of the finest daggers in the Nine Realms, forged by the dwarves of Nidavellir and specifically attuned to his seidr, as well as a chest of the rarest spellbooks from Alfheim. These were priceless treasures worthy of a Prince of Asgard, and perfectly suited to him, and he had resented them for not being a hammer he didn't even want.

"If I was never to wield Mjolnir and bring glory to Asgard with it, then what was my purpose to be?" he said, endeavoring not to sound sulky.

"Is there only one purpose possible for a Prince of Asgard? Do you think you must be the same as Thor in order to be his equal? A strange and self-defeating notion for one who always pursued his own interests and never tried to best Thor in his."

"Then you did have plans for how you might make use of me."

"Of course I did," said Odin, dismissing Loki's accusatory tone with a wave of his hand. "A king must always consider the strategic utility of every member of his court and his household. In you, I saw numerous possibilities. You might have been betrothed to a Jotun maiden from a prominent family and served as ambassador between our realms. We might have persuaded Laufey to name you heir over Byleistr and Helblindi, then betrothed you to an Aesir maiden. If either you or Laufey refused these proposals, there were many other alliances that could be forged or strengthened through you instead."

Loki mentally recoiled at the thought of becoming Laufey's heir and ruling over that frozen wasteland, but none of these options was truly surprising given what he now knew.

"Whichever course you eventually choose," Odin went on, "I have always planned to entrust the Casket of Ancient Winters to you. It would be an invaluable negotiating tool with Jotunheim, but it will be yours to use as you see fit."

It was fortunate Loki was already lying abed when he heard this; his shock might well have knocked him off his feet. "You would _give_ the Casket that nearly froze all of Midgard to a Frost Giant?"

Odin turned to face him. "I would give it to Loki Odinson, and no other."

There was no conclusion for Loki to draw from this except that Odin truly did view him as a son, _while_ fully appreciating what he was. He couldn't comprehend it, and yet the bottomless pit began to shrink. "Why couldn't you have told me all of this from the beginning?" he asked.

"I should have done so," said Odin, returning to the seat beside the bed. "But I convinced myself all these years that you were better off—safer, happier—not knowing the truth. Keeping it from the court and our enemies was certainly wise. It is within my rights as king to legitimize an adoptive child, but with tensions still so fraught between Asgard and Jotunheim, you would have been in grave danger if your true heritage was known. However, I see now that it was foolish to imagine _you_ would never learn of it, clever and curious as you are, and that when you did, you would not have the tools you needed to make peace with it."

He reached for Loki's uninjured shoulder and squeezed it. "I know I have broken your trust and wounded you deeply, my son, and for that I am sorry. I hope you will not blame Frigga. She would have told you everything as a child, but I insisted on silence. And do not blame Thor. He has been as ignorant of it as you. If you require more proof than my word, you shall have it. I will speak with Heimdall, and if you ask it of him, he will show you your history."

Loki nodded, unable to speak around the lump in his throat.

"I implore you to consider carefully what this knowledge is worth to you. Seeing it will be very different than hearing of it. I would spare you that pain if I could, but it is for you to decide."

* * *

Odin being well-rested certainly makes a difference, doesn't it! Also, it seems to me that the only good reason for him to keep the Casket of Ancient Winters rather than destroy it is that he planned to give it to Loki eventually. Until everything went wrong.

I've thought a lot about what I wanted to do with Loki's Asgardian glamour. I used to take it for granted that it was Odin's magic, but rewatching the flashback scene over and over had me increasingly convinced that baby Loki did it himself. And maybe Odin thought it was an endearing trick (hence smiling and impulsively taking Loki back to Asgard to raise him), but I think it was actually more of a desperate attempt to earn the affection of this stranger who was kind enough to pick him up after he'd been left there for days. Simply by responding to his crying and holding him, Odin became baby Loki's favorite person, but he'd already learned to expect rejection and neglect. You might be thinking these are emotions too complex for a two-day-old infant, but stuff that happens to us as infants can have profound, lasting effects on our psychological and emotional development. In Loki's case, fear of abandonment, an inferiority complex, insecure attachment, and a deep-seated need for Odin's approval. All of which obviously tracks with adult Loki's behavior. I suspect the real disconnect between Odin and Loki is that Odin never realized Loki had these issues, so he inadvertently fed them.

Regarding Odin's extreme contempt for what Laufey did to Loki, it seems to me that a man who was forced to banish his daughter because she was trying to take over the universe and refused to back down (I'm on Odin's side about that), would utterly despise Laufey for leaving Loki to die just for being unusually small. This is *personal*.

Please let me know what you thought! Reviews are food for the muse!


	8. Self-Awareness

"Are you hungry?" said Odin, standing up to leave. "I will have supper brought to you."

"Thank you," said Loki, though he couldn't have said whether he was hungry or not.

The door opened and Frigga entered, carrying a tray heaped with what looked like all of his favorite foods.

"It appears I spoke in haste," said Odin. "Your mother seems to have the matter well in hand." He kissed her on the cheek. From where Loki lay partially propped up against pillows, he watched their brief interaction. Frigga smiled at Odin, and it seemed to communicate a great deal more than appreciation for the kiss. _You are the son we chose_. He supposed that they, in turn, were the parents _he'd_ chosen as an infant, the moment he changed his appearance to mimic theirs. There was something reassuring about that idea.

Not that he'd fully come to terms with everything he'd just learned. He felt cast adrift. He'd taken it for granted all his life that he was bound to Odin, Frigga, and Thor by the unbreakable bonds of blood. Apparently those bonds were only as strong as the mutual regard they shared. _What if they tire of you? What if they come to their senses and realize it was foolish to think you could pass for Aesir?_ Loki grimaced and tried to shove those thoughts aside.

Odin departed and Frigga set the tray of food on his bedside table, then sat on the edge of the bed.

"You have been weeping," she said, touching his cheek.

"I am well, Mother," he said, catching her wrist. "Or at least I will be."

She beamed and wrapped her arms around him. Her embrace was just as warm and loving as it always was. He tried to detect any sign of something less than a mother's love in it. Some hint of insincerity, or perhaps a dash of pity for the poor Jotun foundling. But there was none of that, and after about two seconds, his reservations shattered and he hugged her back fiercely. Fresh tears welled up and his shoulder ached from the sudden movement, but he paid neither any heed.

"We are your family, Loki," she said, kissing his hair, "and we will never let go of you."

X

Thor had spent all afternoon and evening thinking over what Mother had told him—with the help of a cask or two of ale. He and all the other Aesir who had grown up after the war with Jotunheim had listened to the victorious soldiers' tales and taken them deeply to heart. They had played games such as "Einherjar and Frost Giants" while dreaming of facing real Jotnar in battle just as their heroes had. And yet if Mother was right (and Mother was always right), then the Jotnar were just...people. People with lives and hopes and loved ones, whose only crime, perhaps, was to be the subjects of a king driven by his ambitions of a frozen empire.

When Thor had faced one of the giants, he had been eager to test his mettle against him. He and his pet had attacked Thor first, but would Thor have cared if they had not? He thought of his many boasts over the centuries that, when he was king, the Frost Giants would fear his wrath as much as they feared the Allfather's. That he would hunt them down and slay them all. He thought of Loki at his side as he said it, and he remembered the way Loki had flinched away from him when he went to remove the ice from his shoulder. Had he truly been so free in his hatred of the Frost Giants that his own brother would fear him now that they knew he was one? The very idea of it shook Thor to the bone, and he spent much of the night tossing and turning.

When he did sleep, he dreamt of a life where Father had never found Loki and brought him home, and he had grown up alone. No one to run through the halls of the palace with him. No one to come up with clever ways to evade their tutors so they could spend their time exploring. No one to get into trouble with. No one to make him laugh with all his tricks and jests.

X

 _Loki was back on Midgard, immobilized by the ice spear through his shoulder. He looked at his hands. They were Jotun blue, and Jotun blue they remained, no matter how hard he tried to change them back. "Brother?" he said._

 _Thor stepped over the dead Frost Giant, his face stony as his hand reached for Loki's throat. "You are no brother of mine, monster. You have trespassed in my home long enough."_

 _"Brother, please," said Loki, but Thor did not release him.  
_

 _"Did I not swear to slay you all?" he said. He bared his teeth in a smile, and_ _Mjolnir began to crackle with electricity in his other hand._

 _"No!" Loki cried, flinging his hands up to push Thor away. Thor grunted and looked down. Loki followed his gaze, and his eyes widened in horror. His right hand had become encased in the same type of spiked ice club the giant had attacked him with, and it had gone straight through Thor's armor into his chest. Mjolnir thudded to the ground, the building electric charge around it dissipating into static._

 _Thor looked back up. His features were twisted in pain and betrayal, but not surprise._ _Blood trickled from his mouth._ _"I was a fool to trust you," he rasped. Loki saw his own face reflected in Thor's eyes as the life began to leave them. It was blue and lined like his hands. The mouth split in a triumphant grin, and the ruby red eyes glittered with malice._ _  
_

Loki woke with a gasp, his heart pounding. He raised his hands in front of his eyes in panic. They looked normal, and he buried his face in them, a strangled sound escaping his throat. It wasn't real. He wasn't on Midgard, but in the dormitory attached to the healing room, and he had not just murdered his brother. Still, the image of Thor dead by his hand was difficult to dislodge, as was the sick feeling in his stomach. The cheerful early morning sunlight streaming in through the windows seemed to mock him.

He couldn't stay in this bed alone with his thoughts any longer. He attempted to sit up fully and found, to his relief, that it didn't cause his head to swim this time, so he swung his legs over the side of the bed and carefully stood. Still, the lightheadedness did not return. His shoulder was extremely stiff, but the blood-replenishing potions had plainly finished their work overnight.

He made it as far as the main healing room itself before Eir caught him. "Where do you think you're going, your highness?" she said.

"Out," said Loki. "I feel better."

"I'll be the judge of that." She waved a hand over his right shoulder, and the plain green tunic appeared to melt away, along with the bandages underneath, revealing what remained of the wound. "Hmm, yes, this does look much better. No sign of infection. You're very lucky; when I treated these types of wounds in our soldiers during the war, the frostbite always did more damage to the tissues than the piercing wounds themselves." The bandages and tunic reappeared, not that they'd ever truly been gone, but Loki wasn't paying attention to that. He was gaping at Eir.

"Then...you know?"

"Of course I know," she said, her tone suggesting he was being obtuse. "I wouldn't have been much use to you as your healer all your life if I didn't even know what species you were. Now, if you'll agree to keep those bandages on for another full day, I'll clear you to leave and then I can get back to my other charge."

"Other charge?" said Loki, feeling rather disgruntled by Eir's matter-of-fact attitude about what he was.

"Oh, I suppose you haven't heard. The Midgardian you brought with you still lives."

"How is that possible?" said Loki, shocked.

"He is not an ordinary Midgardian," said Eir, walking to another door. Loki followed, and she led him into a smaller chamber where Steven Rogers was suspended in golden light above a round platform. He looked somewhat less frozen than the last time Loki had seen him, but "alive" still wouldn't have been Loki's first guess.

"During the Jotnar's invasion of Midgard," said Eir, "it was certain death for a mortal to be frozen in their ice, but this mortal was merely put into stasis. Once I finish thawing him out, then I'll be able to work on his injuries."

"Injuries?" said Loki, frowning.

"Oh, yes," said Eir. She waved her hand again, and this time it was Rogers's clothing and flesh that was hidden to view in places, briefly showing where his bones were cracked or broken, including his skull, a few ribs, and both of his left limbs. "I believe he sustained these when his aircraft first hit the ice. Ironically, it might have been the Jotnar's ice freezing him instantly that kept him alive."

"How long until he wakes?"

"Two days at most," said Eir. "I understand he's a great hero on Midgard. His people will undoubtedly be happy to have him back, but I would love a chance to study what makes his physiology so resilient."

Loki stared at the hovering man a moment longer before taking his leave. He wasn't sure how he felt about Steven Rogers. If it wasn't for him, he'd still be blissfully ignorant of his origins. He thought of what Odin had said. Did he want to see what had happened for himself? He didn't think Odin would offer Heimdall's sight as corroboration to his story if it was not the truth, but what had he kept back?

He heard heavy footfalls coming down the corridor he was about to turn onto, and he instinctively cloaked himself. The other person rounded the corner, revealing himself to be Thor, who didn't appear to have slept any better than Loki had. He headed straight for the healing room. Loki watched him pass, but did not uncloak. _Coward_.

X

The first thing Thor did upon waking (or, rather, upon giving up on getting any real sleep) was go to the healing room to see Loki, but to his dismay, Eir informed him that his brother had just left. So he tried Loki's chambers next, but there was no sign of him there either.

In the library, he didn't even pause like he normally would to admire the shining miniature Yggdrasil that floated over the room, serving as its light source. He simply went from alcove to alcove, prodding the air to make sure Loki wasn't hiding behind an illusion, but he'd never got the hang of dispelling them and could only sense them one time in three to begin with. If Loki was here, he didn't want Thor to find him.

He wasn't at breakfast either, and with no other ideas of where his brother might be, Thor made his way to the training grounds, shoulders slumped. He brightened slightly at the sight of Sif, who was demonstrating advanced blade forms for some of the newest Einherjar recruits. When she saw him, she smiled and left the soldiers to practice what she'd shown them.

"I don't suppose you've seen Loki, have you?" said Thor. "I can't find him anywhere."

"I have not," said Sif. "He has left the healing room, then?"

"This morning, before I got there," said Thor. He heaved a sigh. "Do you think me a bad brother, Sif?"

She frowned sympathetically and touched his arm. "Thor, Loki's wound was not your fault."

"Not the wound," said Thor. "I fear I haven't appreciated him as he deserves. My life would be far too predictable and dull if it weren't for him."

"But you and Loki have always been close," said Sif.

"And yet I didn't hesitate to go to Muspelheim when I knew he would not be permitted to accompany me."

"You cannot _always_ be together," she said. "Heimdall and I see each other far less often. Well." She rolled her eyes. "At least, I see _him_ far less often."

"Perhaps, but only think how many times over we and the Warriors Three would be dead or imprisoned had it not been for Loki's cleverness. Did I ever thank him, or did I only ridicule him for using trickery and exercising caution instead of throwing himself into battle as heedlessly as we do?"

"It is not as though Loki has not earned his share of ill will," Sif pointed out. "Though we are his friends, he never misses an opportunity to insult one of us, and much of his mischief is harmless fun, I'm sure, but he can be cruel, and that is his own choice."

Thor grimaced, watching the recruits, who had begun to spar against one another. He knew it was true. Mother had often observed that, while his own temper flared hot and fast and burned itself out within hours, Loki could quietly hold a grudge forever. He could smile and be amiable all while he plotted vengeance that was not always proportionate to the original offense (and usually involved Thor getting stabbed). "Well I cannot change what he does," he said, "but I can change what I do, and who knows? Perhaps he will follow suit."

Sif stood quietly beside him for a moment. Then she reached for his hand where it rested on the wooden railing. He stared at her. She'd never done that before. Her hand was warm and strong, callused from centuries wielding her sword. "To answer your earlier question," she said, "I do not think you a bad brother. It is a question a bad brother would not care enough to ask." Her brow furrowed. "Perhaps...perhaps I too have been slow to recognize Loki's contributions. We have been friends since childhood, and there have been times I could have done better at remembering it."

Thor grinned at her. "I will tell him to undo whatever spell he used on your hair, if you would like."

Sif wrinkled her nose. "No. This color has grown on me. Do _not_ tell Loki I said so."

Thor looked at her long, black tresses. He hadn't really studied the difference Loki's alteration had made, but he now found it strangely difficult to imagine her with golden hair. The dark color brought out her features and made her look much more striking, both as a warrior and as a woman. "If you prefer it," he said, "then I hope I do not risk a mortal injury when I say that I think it suits you."

She elbowed him rather sharply in the ribs, making him wheeze, but she was grinning back. "Not a _mortal_ injury, at least."

* * *

I had a really hard time figuring out where to go next after Loki's conversation with Odin. It felt like Loki was becoming well-adjusted way too quickly, and all the options felt too sappy or something. I'm happy with what I finally came up with.

Thor's being introspective! Maybe he doesn't need to get banished and stripped of his powers to have character development after all! And Sif might actually succeed in getting Thor to notice her! Yay! (Pretty sure that will still only be a minor aspect of the story, though.)

Next chapter will probably be what Heimdall shows Loki, and may or may not include some interaction between him and Thor.

Please review! Reviews are life!


	9. Skipping Stones

Thor left Sif to continue her training with the Einherjar so that he could keep searching for Loki. Instead of wandering about aimlessly, he thought of simply asking Heimdall where he was. This turned out to be unnecessary, however, for he spotted Loki as soon as he exited the gates that led to the Rainbow Bridge. He was sitting on the low wall that served as a barrier to the sea, his elbows on his knees, looking at the Observatory.

"There you are!" said Thor, vaulting his legs over the wall and plopping down beside him. "I've been looking for you all morning."

"Have you?" said Loki dully. He picked up a smooth stone from the small pile he'd made and pelted it at the water. It skipped two dozen times or so before sinking. "I suppose you know the truth about me now."

"Mother told me yesterday," said Thor. He took one of the stones and threw it. It skipped fewer times but with greater distance between the skips, making it about half the length of the bridge. How many times had they done this as boys?

"And would you still call me Brother now?" Loki punctuated the question with a rather ferocious throw of his next stone.

Thor gave a brief chuckle as he selected his next stone. "I had a dream last night that Father never found you, and I grew up alone."

Loki's third stone plunked straight into the water without skipping at all. "How delightful," he said, a hard sneer in his voice. "How much simpler and happier that must have been. I'm sorry I didn't do you the courtesy of dying on Jotunheim as an infant."

"Simpler, maybe," said Thor mildly, "but not happier." He felt Loki stiffen beside him. "In fact, I can't remember a dream I hated more than that one." He tossed his next stone up and caught it before throwing it over the water. He smiled as he watched it go. "Do you remember the first time we skipped our stones all the way over the edge of the world from here? You used illusions to distract the kitchen staff so that we could steal an entire platter of tarts to celebrate."

"A cunning heist, at least until Mother found us passed out behind a pillar with sticky hands and faces and crumbs all over our tunics," said Loki, smiling in spite of himself.

"If blood did not make us brothers," said Thor, clapping a hand to the back of Loki's neck, "then a thousand years of quarreling, laughing, getting each other into and out of trouble, having adventures, and fighting side by side have. Do you think I could cast all of that aside, even if I wished to?"

"Perhaps you should," said Loki, shrugging Thor's hand away. "I too had a dream last night. We were back on Midgard. You saw what I really was, and you were going to kill me for it."

"You cannot think I would—" Thor began. That flinch had been bad enough; he couldn't abide the thought of Loki even now being afraid of him. But Loki didn't let him finish.

"Before you could manage it," he said, "I put a Jotun ice spear through your heart and watched the life drain out of you."

Thor clenched his jaw and pressed his lips tightly together, but it wasn't enough to prevent a snort of laughter escaping. Loki shot him an indignant glare. This had clearly been bothering him all morning. "I'm sorry," said Thor, struggling to keep his voice steady. "It's just... _you_ killing _me_? With a single attack?"

"You _know_ that's not the point," said Loki acidly.

"Then what is?" said Thor. "You don't wish to kill me, so what should some ridiculous dream signify?"

"What makes you so certain I don't? I've stabbed you often enough."

"Now who's being dramatic?" Thor laughed. "You've never purposely done me a serious injury in your life!"

"Just because I've deliberately avoided dealing you a mortal wound in the past doesn't mean I would have failed to do so if I'd tried."

Thor glanced sideways at Loki, his mirth dying away as a suspicion formed in his mind. "You _don't_ wish to kill me, but now that you know what you are, you fear you'll try it anyway."

"How do you know it's not in my nature, whether I wish it or not?"

Suspicion confirmed. There was such bitterness in Loki's voice. Thor suddenly understood the great sadness that had come over Mother when she'd spoken to him of the Jotnar. He chose another stone to skip to buy himself a moment to consider his reply. "Do you know what has troubled me most about our excursion to Midgard?"

Loki didn't answer, but Thor could tell the shift in focus had piqued his curiosity.

"It showed me a reflection of myself that I cannot be happy with. I'm not confident that I would not have attacked the Jotnar outright or provoked them into a fight, had we come upon them first. I was _eager_ at the opportunity they presented."

"Why should you not be eager to rid Midgard of the monsters that tried to destroy it?"

Thor ran his hands over his face. "Mother says that Asgard only speaks of the Jotnar as monsters because it is an easier way to remember the war. I did not understand her when she said it, but now I do. If you can see your enemy as a monster, then you are justified in showing no mercy and feeling no remorse. But if he is only a man fighting for king and realm, slaying him isn't quite so heroic or glorious."

"That is all very well, but what makes you think a people who would follow such a king into war so readily against a realm as defenseless as Midgard are not monstrous?"

"Because of you!" said Thor. He was a very straight-forward man. It was not in his nature to hold conflicting ideas in his mind, and even less so in his heart. If his brotherly affection and loyalty were incompatible with his hatred for the Frost Giants because it turned out his brother _was_ a Frost Giant, then one of those had to give way. Which one hadn't even been a matter of choice. "You are proof enough to me that they are a worthy people, and I no longer hold Laufey's crimes against them. If I could take back everything I ever said about Frost Giants, I would. It was ignorant boasting, and I am ashamed to recall it."

"How easily you pardon an entire race on my account. But you forget whose son I am, or did Mother leave out that detail?"

"You are not Laufey."

"You can't know that." He looked at his hands. "What if Loki Odinson is just the result of the magic that gave me an Aesir form? I've been trying to work out exactly what it is I did to affect a disguise so thorough that even I would fail to notice it all this time, and it is no mere illusion."

Thor frowned at him. "You fear that this transformation magic has altered your mind as well? But if that were possible, then wouldn't you have been trapped in the form of the first animal you turned yourself into?" He vividly remembered the time Loki turned him into a frog. He'd still been himself in there, and he had been extremely annoyed.

"It is true that transformation magic leaves the mind intact, but that doesn't mean different forms can't have a profound impact. They come with their own very insistent sets of instincts and appetites, which are harder to suppress the longer you maintain the form. I've spent nine and a half centuries with Aesir brain chemistry and hormones. I don't know how much of me would even exist without this _fiction_."

It certainly wasn't a comfortable thought, but Thor still wasn't convinced Loki had any cause to worry. Brain chemistry and hormones were all very well, but if the Aesir and Jotnar were as similar as Mother had suggested, then the differences would be negligible. "Perhaps you should revert back and find out," he said.

Loki looked stricken at the very idea.

"Sometimes I envy you your cleverness," Thor sighed, "but there are moments when it plainly serves you ill." He finished on a grin and pulled Loki into a cross between a headlock and a one-armed hug. "In any case, I'm touched that you would avoid me to keep me safe from you."

"Get off!" said Loki, halfheartedly shoving him away. "I wasn't avoiding you."

"What were you doing out here if not that?"

"It might shock you to hear this," said Loki, "but not everything I do is about you. Father said I could ask Heimdall to show me my origins. I'm working up the nerve to do it."

Thor made a face. "Why would you _want_ to watch Laufey discard you?"

"To be certain that's how it really happened."

"You think Father lied to you?" Thor demanded.

"He _did_ lie to me, Thor," Loki snapped. "He's lied to me my entire life, and he forced Mother to do the same."

"Then what is it you want of Heimdall?" said Thor, starting to get angry. "Proof that Father's telling you the truth, or proof that he isn't? And what would you do if it was the latter?"

Loki glanced at him. "What, are you afraid I'll see something that will make me want to forsake Asgard and go back to Jotunheim? I thought you believed the Jotnar a worthy people now."

His tone was flippant with a hint of disgust. He plainly didn't think there was anything Heimdall could show him to make him want such a thing. However, now that he had put it to words, Thor realized that the reason for his anger was that he feared Loki might do exactly that. "Can you promise you will not?" he said quietly.

Loki frowned and looked out at the distant Observatory. "I can no sooner cast aside my history here than you, but the only way I can begin to move forward is if I know everything about how I came to be here."

Thor still wasn't happy about the idea, but he could see that Loki needed it. He gripped the back of his neck again. "Do you want me to accompany you, Brother?"

Loki took a moment to answer. "I thank you for the offer," he said. He looked as though he truly meant it. "But I would prefer to do this alone."

X

Partly to stall for time, Loki crossed the Rainbow Bridge on foot rather than fetching his horse first. He soon came to regret this decision, as it gave him far too long to think. Thor had surprised him. Loki had brandished the account of his nightmare as a weapon, trying to goad Thor into admitting or realizing that he couldn't see him as a brother anymore after all, just as he had tried to goad Odin. Thor might not have seen through him as Odin had; instead, he had simply smashed the trap apart with sheer guilelessness.

That Thor couldn't imagine Loki besting him in a fight to the death was insulting but hardly unexpected. Much more bewildering was that Thor also could not imagine Loki attempting to kill him in the first place, even knowing Loki was a Frost Giant. How did trust come so easily to him? Loki could not even trust himself, and the very idea of reversing the transformation so that he could find out how much of him was real terrified him more than anything else ever had.

He had told Thor he wanted to see his origins so he could move forward, but all he expected was to have his worst suspicions of the Jotnar confirmed. He didn't know what he would do after that.

"You look like a man bound for the headsman's axe, my prince," said Heimdall when Loki entered the Observatory.

"Are you surprised I've come to take Odin up on his offer?"

"In all your life, I have never seen you reject an opportunity to acquire knowledge. I was certain you would come."

Loki had a sudden urge to ask the Gatekeeper what he thought of the Frost Giants, having observed them alongside all the other peoples of Yggdrasil for twelve centuries. But he held his tongue. Heimdall already knew more about him than he had ever liked, and he had known all along what he was; Loki would not voluntarily reveal even more to him. He walked up to the central dais and stood before him. "Show me," he said.

"As you command," said Heimdall. He raised a hand to Loki's forehead, and the Observatory vanished from sight in a whirlwind of color and sound.

* * *

This one gave me a really hard time. When I started, I mostly assumed Loki's Aesir disguise was just an illusion, even though that didn't make sense in a lot of ways. Having it be full-on shapeshifting makes it so much better, both functionally and for angst purposes.

I really want to draw little Thor and Loki passed out behind a pillar and covered in the residue of their stolen treats. If I do, I'll let you guys know.

Next up is Loki's backstory, for real this time. :D I was going to have that happen before Thor and Loki interacted, but that felt wrong. Among other things, I wanted Thor to have a chance to react to Loki's desire to see the truth of his biological family for himself.


	10. Queen Farbauti of Jotunheim

Being taken into Heimdall's sight was not unlike traveling the Bifrost, except that only Loki's mind made the journey while his body remained standing in the Observatory. Innumerable images rushed past him—glimpses of other lives—until one grew larger and larger and eclipsed the rest, and then he found himself standing alongside Heimdall in a wide room constructed of smooth, marble-like ice. It appeared to be a study. There were numerous well-stocked bookshelves and a desk Loki could have walked beneath standing up straight. There were also several large pots from which grew snow lilies, just like the one in Mother's garden. Their glow provided the only light source from within the room; the rest (which wasn't much) came from an open balcony.

The room's only occupant was a Jotun woman, who looked out over the balcony with a somber expression. Loki moved to see what she was looking at. He was just tall enough to see out. They were in a vast city, its buildings constructed of the same ice as this. The beauty and complexity of the architecture surprised him. There were no people in the streets, and the reason for their absence was obvious: the horizon was a line of fire and smoke, and he could hear the sounds of the approaching battle.

He turned back to the woman. She wasn't quite double his height and was clothed in a strange-looking dress made of intricately worked leather trimmed in gold. Her long black hair hung loose down her back, and her skin was traced with delicate, curving lines. The longer he looked at her face, the more he saw the resemblance to his own features.

"Is this—" he began.

"Yes, my prince," said Heimdall. "Farbauti, Queen of Jotunheim. Your mother."

Loki didn't know what he had expected. Farbauti was beautiful, like her snow lilies. One of her hands rested over her rounded stomach, and he stared at it. Standing this way, she looked, for all the nine realms, like a mother who loved her unborn child and would protect him. So what had changed? _Why didn't you want me?_ The voice came like a little boy's plea in the back of his mind.

He gritted his teeth. He did _not_ care about these creatures, and he did not care about _her_. He was only here to get the raw facts. He was certainly not going to imagine what it would have been like to be a young boy here, spending hours upon hours reading oversized books in Farbauti's study, perhaps bringing a stack of them under that desk with him.

Farbauti grimaced and her other hand joined the first on her stomach. A sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead, then turned to frost. She chuckled, but it sounded more resigned than mirthful. "Your timing leaves something to be desired, little one."

The door behind them opened, and another woman entered. This one had no hair, only bony ridges protruding through her scalp, and her leather dress had no gold trim and was far simpler in design. "Your majesty, you must leave. All the people have evacuated. The Asgardian army will be within the city's gates by tomorrow."

"I cannot evacuate, Skadi," said Farbauti. "The baby comes."

"What?" said the other woman. "But it is at least three months too soon!"

"I know," said Farbauti.

"A miscarriage?" said Skadi. If Loki did not misjudge her tone, she actually sounded _hopeful_.

"No," said Farbauti. "The child is healthy and strong." Despite her fierce expression, there were tears in her eyes, which froze solid seconds after they escaped. "You must help me. The king cannot know."

"You would hide this from him?"

"Of course I would," Farbauti snarled. "This is my _child_."

"But what of the law?"

In a flash, Farbauti was across the room, pinning Skadi against the door and pressing an ice dagger into her throat. "Do not _speak_ to me of that accursed law. You think the man who wrote it would let it be known that he, a direct descendant of Ymir, has somehow produced a _runt_? Jotunheim stands on the brink of defeat by Asgard! All of Laufey's ambitions have crumbled around him. He will not tolerate another source of shame."

Skadi swallowed. "What would you have me do?"

Farbauti lowered the knife and backed away. She glared at Skadi with the haughtiness of a queen. "You will help me deliver this child. Then you must hasten with it to the Alfheim gateway before anyone can recognize its markings."

"But the Ljosalfar have not allowed us passage since the war began!"

"They know of Laufey's law, and war or no, they have always taken pity on its victims. They will grant you passage, and they will protect the child. In the meantime, I believe I can gain my sons' support, and perhaps together we can force Laufey to hear reason for once."

Loki's heart beat faster. Then Farbauti _had_ wanted him? What had gone wrong? "What is this law?" he asked.

"It was written before my watch began," said Heimdall. "But I have seen its results. Laufey has always believed that full-blooded Jotnar children being born small were a sign that the strength of their people was weakening. When he first took the throne, he made a decree he thought would repair the damage. He did not care that these children always possessed greater aptitude for seidr, or perhaps he resented them more because of it, for it is not a power he possesses himself. The males are sent to orphanages off-world. The females are kept for their abilities, but they are no more than tools for him to use, and they are not permitted to marry or have children. The woman you fought on Midgard was one of these."

That certainly explained why she had laughed as hard as she had when she saw his Jotun skin. If those lines were enough to identify him, then she had recognized the son of her king. A very good joke indeed. "And the people simply accept this law?"

"Most are not affected by it. The condition is quite rare, affecting one child in roughly fifteen thousand. Many consider the law merciful, for that is how Laufey presents it, but there is considerable stigma towards the parents—an attitude Laufey has also encouraged."

"I suppose I am a fitting punishment for him, then," said Loki.

Farbauti led the way out of the room. Skadi followed. Loki and Heimdall did not need to follow on foot, for their surroundings moved for them. Skadi had a hand behind her back, and Loki watched blue light flare around it. Seidr, though not particularly strong. Whatever spell she was weaving, she was taking care to hide it from the queen.

The image blurred, then reformed. Loki and Heimdall were now atop the gates to the city, overlooking the battle. Even at a glance, Loki could see that the Aesir forces outnumbered the Jotnar easily. The largest giant Loki had yet seen in person stood at the ramparts a few yards down. He recognized him from images on Asgard, and his fists clenched. _Laufey._

Two other giants climbed a set of stairs to join him. Both of them resembled the Jotun king, though the lines on their skin had the same patterns as Farbauti's. On all three of them, the markings seemed to have been carved more deeply into their flesh through scarification, but that had not been the case for any of the women.

The two newcomers knelt, clasped their right hands over their left fists, and touched their foreheads to their knuckles in some kind of salute. It struck Loki as rather more submissive than the Aesir half-kneel and fist to heart.

"What news?" said Laufey, his glaring red eyes still fixed on the battlefield.

Both got back to their feet. "The city has been evacuated," said the one who looked older.

"Father, the Asgardians have again offered truce if we surrender," said the younger. "The terms are less generous this time, but—"

"We will not yield," said Laufey. "I aim to draw them in. We are not so broken as they believe. Helblindi, take your forces east. Byleistr, take yours west. When they breach the city tomorrow, we will cut them off at the gates, and I will slay the Allfather myself."

Loki's brothers by blood exchanged a glance—having already been driven back this far, they plainly had little confidence that the plan would succeed. But they said nothing and departed. No sooner had they gone than shining blue runes etched themselves into the air before Laufey, precisely the same color as Skadi's seidr.

 _"The Queen remains at the palace. The child comes."_

Laufey's eyes widened. "So soon?" he muttered. "Impossible." He turned and jumped down from the wall, straight onto the back of a beast like the one Thor had fought. It took off into the city, towards the palace.

The image blurred and reformed again. They were back in the palace, but in a different room. This one was smaller, with no windows, and was lit by small crystals embedded in the icy walls. Farbauti lay on a bed of furs. Every inch of visible skin was now completely covered in frost, and she looked rather pale beneath it. Loki began to step towards her, but stopped himself. This was only an image of the past. He could do nothing for her, and in any case, he _did not care_.

Skadi dropped an ice dagger coated in something dark, then drew back from the bed, and an infant's wails filled the room. Loki stared at his newborn self. He was about the size of a healthy Aesir baby, but he looked ridiculously small in the hands of a full-sized Frost Giant. His markings were indeed the same as Farbauti's and the two Jotun princes'.

"It is a boy, your majesty," said Skadi.

Farbauti laughed feebly and held out her arms.

Skadi did not move to hand the baby to her. "I'm sorry, my queen," she said. "What you asked of me was treason."

Even more color drained out of Farbauti's face, and the sparkle in her eyes vanished as though it had been snuffed out. "What have you done?"

The door to the room burst open, and Laufey entered. He stared from Farbauti to Skadi to the wailing infant, and it took approximately two seconds for his expression to fill with fury. "What is this?" he said through gritted teeth.

"This is our son, Laufey," said Farbauti, tears freezing in long tracks down her cheeks. "You have another son. Please."

"You thought to hide it from me?" said Laufey, his voice low and dangerous.

"Only until you replaced that lump of ice in your chest with a beating heart!" said Farbauti.

"Take that noisy creature to the temple by the gates," said Laufey, eyes still on his wife, who now struggled get up. He seized one of the blankets off the bed and threw it at Skadi. "Make sure no one sees its markings. You wish mercy for it, Farbauti? I will let the Asgardians decide its fate."

Farbauti screamed and flung herself out of the bed, only for her legs to give out, sending her crashing to the floor. Skadi fled the room with the baby, using seidr to block the sound of his cries but doing nothing to soothe him. Loki felt a wave of loathing for that woman, almost as intense as what he felt towards Laufey. This was not mercy, he thought, but cowardice. Laufey fully believed he was sending the baby to his death, but he would not strike the killing blow himself.

The second the door closed behind Skadi, the image split in a way that boggled Loki's mind for a moment. He could see Skadi carrying the baby away under cover of magic and that blanket, but he could also see Laufey and Farbauti. It wasn't too different from what happened when he cast a projection of himself instead of a simple simulacrum, but he wasn't used to having it done to him by someone else.

"You think I will let this happen?" said Farbauti, and it sounded like her very throat might tear under the force of her hatred. "You think I will help you pretend this was a miscarriage and not murder?"

"Oh, Farbauti," said Laufey, bending down and cupping her face in one hand. It almost looked like a tender gesture, but Loki could see the way her skin blanched around his fingertips from the force of his grip. "If you attempt any such thing, then I will parade you before the people of Jotunheim as an adulteress. You will end a beggar on the streets, and no one will believe that child was mine. The imperfection must have come from you anyway, which means I have no more use for you."

"The people will never believe the king who brought their realm to ruin above the queen who cared for them while our armies were on Midgard, and neither will your sons! Whatever the Allfather does not take from you, I will take myself if you do not give my child back to me!"

Laufey's lip curled. "I will enjoy watching you try."

Farbauti let out an incoherent noise of rage. She seized the hand he still had on her face and formed an ice dagger in her free hand. She lunged with it, but he caught her wrist and, with a snarl, turned the weapon back on her.

It took a moment for Loki to register that the scream of horror ringing in his ears had come from his own throat.

* * *

What happens to Farbauti here is pretty much comics canon. :( I deeply dislike Laufey, so it's possible I didn't do a great job of portraying him as more than a flat villain, but I do think he would've been at his worst here at the end of a war he started for his own ambition and which he is now badly losing.

Okay, stuff about Jotnar biology and culture. I wanted to account for why Loki's markings in his Jotun form are really delicate-looking, as opposed to the markings on Laufey and all the warriors. What makes the most sense to me is that they do ritual scarification to further emphasize their markings, and since we never saw any Frost Giant ladies, I decided the scarification thing is guys-only. So Loki missed out on that fun tradition. The markings are also determined by genes passed down from the mother's side, which is why Loki's look nothing like Laufey's.

Regarding Farbauti's pregnancy, it seems likely that it would take less time for a human-sized fetus to develop than a full-sized one, which is why Farbauti and Skadi immediately know the baby isn't normal-sized if Farbauti's already in labor so soon. The smaller size would probably also make labor go faster. As for the frozen sweat and tears? Yeah, I just thought that would look kinda cool.


	11. Lost and Found

"I am sorry, my prince," said Heimdall. They now stood inside a dark temple of ice, where Skadi had deposited the baby on a stone altar before scurrying away—as much as it was possible for a woman who stood eleven feet tall to scurry. Loki thought he'd seen the glitter of a frozen tear on her face as she left, but if that was remorse, then it was worth less than the drop of saltwater it had produced. She'd just gotten her queen murdered and helped her king dispose of his own infant child by dangling him within the enemy's reach. Once she was gone from the building, the spell of silence began to fracture apart, and the baby's cries became audible again.

"I don't want pity, Gatekeeper," said Loki, who felt as though shock was the only thing preventing him from weeping like his infant self after what he had just witnessed. "Not from the man who watched all of this unfold and did nothing."

Heimdall stared at Loki for a long moment. Loki refused to be cowed, even with the full intensity of that cosmic gaze on him. "To be Gatekeeper of Asgard is to bear witness to _all_ the suffering in Yggdrasil's branches, not just that of a mother and child on Jotunheim. Before the Allfather bestowed this position upon me, he bound me to an oath with Gungnir. I was to watch over the nine realms, protect the borders of Asgard, offer the king counsel when he asked for it, and alert him when a great threat arose, but I was forbidden to interfere otherwise."

"But why?" said Loki, outraged. "Why would he require such an oath?"

"Mercy," Heimdall said simply. "In a single day, I see more injustice and cruelty than your mind could comprehend. Even as we sojourn here in the past, I see it still. With the Bifrost, I could send myself to intervene, yet I am only one man. I can only be in one place at a time. If I had the freedom to act on anything that I saw, I would also have the responsibility to choose who to save and who to let die, and I would have to watch my failures extend beyond the counting with every passing moment. Under that weight, I would have driven Hofund through my own heart the very first night it was entrusted to me."

These words struck Loki like a fist to the stomach. He had never considered the implications of Heimdall's sight much farther than that he did not appreciate being included in its constant surveillance. "How can you be so serene after all these centuries?" he said hoarsely. "Let alone sane?"

"Because suffering is not all that I see," said Heimdall, the faintest smile on his lips. "Shall we continue?"

"Yes," said Loki meekly. It would have to do for an apology.

The image split again, this time into even more pieces. Perhaps Heimdall thought to impress on him the tiniest fraction of what it was like to always be receiving so much sensory input at once, for Loki could now simultaneously see and hear the baby in the temple, Laufey organizing warriors inside the gates for battle, Byleistr and Helblindi organizing more of them outside, Skadi discovering Farbauti's body (which Laufey had carefully arranged to imply suicide) and collapsing with sobs, and a two-eyed Odin leading the Aesir forces against the city.

It took a moment to get used to the absence of Odin's eyepatch, but the longer Loki watched him fight, the more he was struck by the grimness of his expression. He truly did look like a man who believed he would never see the end of war, even though he was about to win this one.

Night fell over the battlefield, though it was difficult to distinguish it from day through the impenetrable barrier of clouds. The fighting ceased so the injured could be tended, the dead could be prepared for burial, and the healthy could rest. A surprisingly youthful Eir commanded her fellow combat healers as forcefully as Odin commanded the soldiers while watchmen patrolled the perimeter of the camp.

In the camps of the Frost Giants, word began to spread—from Skadi, not Laufey—of Farbauti's demise. She appeared to have taken her own life after suffering a miscarriage. It was impossible to tell whether Skadi actually believed the suicide part of that lie or if she knew what Laufey had done. Shock and grief soon gripped every Jotun warrior.

"Queen Farbauti was deeply beloved by her people," said Heimdall. "As fear of defeat grew into certainty among the Jotnar, she refused to let them succumb to despair. She spent her days hearing supplicants and doing all in her power to answer their needs, and the prospect of another royal child was a beacon of hope for many. To lose both of you on the eve of Asgard's capture of the capital city broke their spirits as years and years of defeat in battle had never done."

Loki watched the news reach Byleistr and Helblindi at almost the same time in their hidden camps on the outskirts at either side of the city. Helblindi screamed his anguish and tore apart everything in his tent with his bare hands, while Byleistr simply sank to his knees, looking utterly bereft.

A raven flew silent as a shadow from Byleistr's camp back to Asgard's golden tents, to whisper in Odin's ear of the enemy queen's death. Within the hour, the skalds of the Einherjar, whose purpose was normally to blare out battle marches and signals to change maneuvers, brought out their lutes, horns, and pipes to play something far more gentle and beautiful. The tribute to Farbauti and her child echoed across the distance between the two armies. All who heard paused to listen. Loki could feel the tears running down his cheeks back in the Observatory, and it was but little comfort that they weren't visible inside the image of the past. And all the while, Laufey continued to prepare for the next day of battle without grief or remorse, and a baby's cries went unheard inside the temple.

Morning came, and with it, the last battle of the war. Had the Jotnar's hearts still been in it, the outcome might have been different. Tyr, commander of the Einherjar, led half of his men against Helblindi, while a company of Valkyries led the shieldmaidens against Byleistr, outflanking both Jotnar forces. Odin pressed forward with the rest of the Einherjar straight towards the city's gates. By evening, he had broken through.

Still Laufey would not surrender, and the situation was too precarious to call a ceasefire the second night. The fighting was now mostly within the city itself. Odin fought closer and closer to Laufey, which was what the Jotun king had been waiting for. Loki watched Laufey form a spiked ball of ice in his fist and hurl it above several pairs of combatants at Odin's head. It caught him directly on his right eye. Laufey's lips curled in a triumphant sneer, but Odin simply ripped the thing free, revealing a gaping, bloody hole where the eye had been, and reined Sleipnir around to face Laufey.

A minute later, Laufey was flat on his back, Gungnir aimed directly at his throat. "Yield now, Laufey," said Odin. "Or I will leave this realm without its king."

Laufey's face was full of impotent rage. Silence swept outward from the two kings as warriors on both sides realized what was happening, and soon it seemed the whole world held its breath for Laufey's reply.

"Jotunheim...surrenders."

Odin nodded, satisfied, but kept both his eye and his spear on Laufey. "Commander Tyr, take your men and locate the Casket of Ancient Winters. We shall remove it to Asgard with us. The price of my mercy."

"You would leave us nothing?" Laufey spat.

"How many times have I offered you truce, Laufey? Your people have already learned the cost of war. Perhaps this will teach it to you as well."

Odin spent the next few hours finalizing the victory, drafting a formal truce agreement and arranging for the Bifrost to begin taking the Aesir forces home. Most of the surviving Jotnar warriors left to go to the evacuated civilians, with only Laufey, the princes, and their guard remaining so that the truce could be signed.

When it was all over and there were no more orders for Odin to give, his step faltered. For a second, golden seidr glimmered around him and Loki realized that he'd put a glamour on himself to hide his weariness from his enemy. He wasn't the only one who noticed. Eir trotted up to Odin's side. "My king, can I be of service?" she said.

Odin waved her off. "Continue to tend the wounded. We return to Asgard today. I won't lose any more men when they are so close to seeing home again."

"But, sire, your eye—"

"Go."

Eir did so, with obvious reluctance. Odin slowly climbed the steps of the temple. He looked like a man who wanted nothing so much as a moment of quiet. Loki watched with bated breath. For the duration of the battle and Laufey's surrender, the baby in the temple had lived a repeating cycle of bawling at the top of his lungs until he exhausted himself to the point of sleep, then waking and whimpering until he worked himself up to crying again. The cycles had gradually grown shorter, the cries weaker. At the moment, he was just on the point of crying in earnest when the doors creaked open. The noise startled the baby, and he hiccuped and cried even harder.

Odin frowned and set Gungnir aside before slowly approaching the altar. He picked the baby up, careful to support his head with one hand. The cries trailed away and stopped, and, beginning at the place where Odin's hands touched him, pale pink swept over the baby's his skin like a wave of warmth, and he smiled. Odin's answering smile was in his eye more than on his lips. "Aren't you a clever little one?" he said. "How long have you been here alone?" He pulled up the corner of his cape and wrapped the baby in it, holding him close, looking at him like he didn't quite know what to make of him.

Eir was still nearby when Odin emerged from the temple clutching Gungnir in his left hand, the baby cradled in the crook of his right arm. The sudden cold wind on the baby's exposed Aesir cheeks made him screw up his face in surprise and begin whimpering again. The sound had Eir dashing up the steps to see what was the matter. "Oh! she cried when she reached Odin, who turned obligingly so that she would have a good angle to see what he held. "Who is this little fellow?"

"I know not. He was alone. Abandoned for his size, perhaps. I have heard of Laufey's views on what he calls runts." He said this with a heavy scowl.

"The poor dear," said Eir. "He looks like he hasn't eaten, and we haven't any wet nurses on Jotunheim."

"No matter," said Odin. "I find I no longer require rest. Let us return to Asgard at once." He struck up a brisk pace towards the gates.

Eir hurried to catch up. "Then you mean to keep him?" she said.

Odin chuckled. "I think he means to keep me, and I'm not certain I have any choice in the matter."

Eir smiled. "Well I believe this is a good omen for the end of the war."

"Oh?"

"Forgive me for being so bold, my king, but I haven't seen that look on your face since I placed Prince Thor in your arms. It is a welcome sight."

"After so much death, I imagine it is," said Odin. The newfound light in his eye twinkled with amusement. "Frigga has said I can no longer surprise her, but I think I may prove her wrong today."

"Oh indeed. I am quite sure the Queen will not be expecting you to arrive without your eye and holding a Jotun infant."

"I hear the reproof on your tongue. Very well, you may make me presentable to return, healer, but do it on the move." They were without the gates now, and about a mile ahead, the Bifrost was already cutting through the dim afternoon sky in brief bursts, taking their warriors back a dozen at a time.

" _Thank_ you, my king," said Eir pointedly. She was now almost jogging to keep up with him, but with a few flicks of her wrist, the blood vanished from Odin's face in a wave of red-gold light. A few more, and a conjured leather eyepatch settled over the empty socket. "That will not last more than a few hours, but I should be able to get you something more substantial by then, and I'll want to make sure the socket is properly cleaned and healed at some point."

"Eir," said Odin.

"Yes, my king?"

"I have trusted you with the lives of Asgard's warriors for many years, as well as the lives of those most precious to me. Can I trust you with the life of this child?"

"Of course."

"No one can know where he came from. His survival could depend on it. He has already crafted an effective disguise for himself, and I will see to the rest. What do you know of caring for Jotun patients?"

"Nothing, but I will learn."

"See that you do." He whistled, and Sleipnir came running, reaching them in seconds. Odin gestured for Eir to mount. She looked surprised, but didn't question. Once she was in the saddle, Odin carefully passed the baby to her. "I will see you again soon," he told him as he began fussing. Then, to Eir, "Go."

The image blurred, and then they were back in the Observatory, but still in the past. A younger Heimdall operated the Bifrost, and Odin came through. "Welcome back to Asgard, my king."

"It is good to be back, Gatekeeper," said Odin. "Tell me of the child. Was he abandoned?"

"Yes. By Laufey."

A chill seemed to emanate from Odin at this, but he only nodded. "I will speak with you at greater length when there is time."

"There will be much to tell, my king," said Heimdall.

"How does he fare now?"

"Eir did not waste Sleipnir's speed. She has already found a wet nurse, the baby has had his first meal and his first bath, and they are waiting at the palace."

"Frigga and Thor?"

"In the nursery. They have been watching the procession of returning soldiers from the window, but they do not know. I believe Eir wanted the honor to be yours."

Odin's smile returned. "Absolutely irreplaceable, that woman."

The image blurred again. An Odin who had dispensed with both his armor and Gungnir entered the healing room, where Eir was trying and failing to soothe the crying baby, who was now clothed in more than a blanket. She handed him gratefully back to her king, and he immediately stopped crying.

"Is there anything else he needs, or can I take him?"

"I will want to keep a careful watch on him for the next few weeks, but he seems very resilient. I do not believe he has suffered any irreversible physical damage. It is good that you found him when you did."

"Thank you, Eir."

Eir put fist to heart and inclined her head. "It is an honor, my king."

The healing room was on the ground floor of the palace, while the nursery was up near its peak, and Odin took his time crossing that distance, humming to the baby and evidently soaking in the feeling of home. Loki was beginning to think Heimdall a bit of a sentimental fool for the choices he was making about which bits to skip and which ones to linger over, but his throat was too tight to comment on it.

The image split, and Loki saw a younger Frigga in the nursery, her hand on little Thor's shoulder as he bounced up and down in front of the window, from which they had a clear view of all the revelry greeting the returning soldiers. "Is Pabbi coming?" he said.

"Yes, darling. Pabbi is coming. The war is over, and that means he will be able to stay with us much more. Will you like that?"

"Oh, yes," said Thor. "We can play and...and...and he can tell me stories and...and we can ride fast on Sepny." Loki had to press his knuckles to his mouth to stop himself from laughing at Thor's haphazard manner of pronouncing words. It was hard to believe he'd ever been this small.

"Sleipnir," said Frigga.

"Sep-ny," Thor tried again, frowning, and Frigga laughed. That was when Odin entered the nursery. Frigga turned, and her face showed joy and relief, then concern, then curiosity, before sliding back to concern. He gave her a wry smile in return.

"Pabbi!" Thor squealed, jumping down from the window ledge and darting across the room. Odin bent down to scoop him up in the arm not holding the baby, laughing while Thor giggled in delight.

"I have missed you, my boy." He kissed Thor on the cheek, and Thor wrapped both arms around his neck and actually managed to stay still for longer than two seconds.

"Not quite back in one piece?" said Frigga. She looked pale and lacked some of the energy Loki was used to seeing from her. She slowly got to her feet and approached them.

"It matters little," said Odin.

"Why is your eye hiding, Pabbi?" said Thor, pointing at the eyepatch.

"Well, Thor, I'm afraid I misplaced it on Jotunheim this morning, but I found something much better." Frigga was now close enough to get a good look at the baby, who blinked sleepily up at her. She smiled and touched his cheek softly. "Heimdall said he is Laufey's, but he was left to starve in a deserted temple."

Frigga made a sympathetic noise in her throat and carefully lifted the baby from Odin's arm. He squirmed and whimpered for a moment, but quieted when she held him close. "I hope you are not planning to give him away now that you have brought him here."

"I am glad we are of one mind," said Odin. "I do not think I could part with him, even if Heimdall had told me his parents only briefly misplaced him."

"What is this lightness in you, husband?" said Frigga reaching up to touch his face. "Is it the end of the war, or is it all the child's doing?"

"You must think me a fool," said Odin. There were tears in his eye. "I have been at war almost all of my life, and all it takes is one cheeky Jotun infant showing off his seidr and smiling at me to make me feel as though all will be well."

"You _are_ a fool, Odin Borson," said Frigga fondly. "My wonderful fool."

Thor had noticed the baby and was trying to reach him. He managed to wriggle enough in Odin's grasp to pat him rather hard on his forehead.

"Be careful, Thor!" said Odin, catching his hand before it could come down again. "And say hello to your new brother."

"I have a brother?" said Thor, wide-eyed.

"Yes," said Frigga.

"Can he play with me?"

"He is too small for that now, but soon, darling." She looked at Odin. "What shall we call him?"

Odin watched the baby thoughtfully while Thor discovered that when he put his finger in his brother's hand, the tiny fist would curl around it. "Loki," he said. "Loki Odinson."

* * *

Lots of parts of this chapter made me cry while writing them. I hope you liked it! You probably noticed that I never referred to the baby as Loki. I did that because he hadn't been named yet, and I wanted to emphasize the importance of actually receiving a name, after Laufey didn't bother to give him one.

If it turns out Heimdall doesn't have the Soul Stone in canon, I'm pretty sure I don't care. I'm enjoying using his sight powers too much to change how things work in the fic. Also, this guided memory tour is basically me combining two abilities we saw in Ragnarok: Heimdall sharing his sight with Thor from across the universe, and Loki breaking into Valkyrie's memories by smacking her on the forehead.

I promise it won't be long now before Steve wakes up.


	12. Steadfast

Evening found Thor at one of his favorite feast halls outside of the palace, trying to keep himself occupied so that he wouldn't go straight to the Observatory to see how Loki fared. Helpfully, Sif and the Warriors Three found him there not long after he arrived. They had all been supplied with ample food and drink, which they dug into with enthusiasm.

"Come, Thor, you must tell us of your time on Midgard," said Volstagg, gesturing with a half-eaten leg of lamb. "Sif has said the warrior you thought to bring to Asgard for a funeral is still alive, and that Loki came back with a hole through his shoulder the size of a fist!"

"It is strange that a Prince of Asgard could have been so badly wounded by anything on that realm," said Hogun with a deep frown.

"Perhaps the Allfather should add Midgard to the list of realms too perilous for Loki to visit," said Fandral, grinning.

"Fandral!" said Sif, glancing at Thor, whose smile faltered, but only for a second.

"My friends, I assure you, Loki and I had the matter well in hand," he said. "We easily retrieved the Midgardian warrior, but before we could return, we were set upon by three Frost Giants, along with a great beast at least twice the size of a full-grown bilgesnipe."

At these words, all four of Thor's friends exclaimed their outrage and alarm.

"Frost Giants, on Midgard and attacking Asgard's princes?" said Fandral.

"Is Laufey mad, to violate the truce after all these centuries?" said Hogun.

"How did they manage to get back to Midgard?" said Volstagg.

"Do they think these offenses will go unanswered?" said Sif.

Thor laughed, which confused them enough that they fell silent. "Laufey has not renewed his assault on Midgard. These were merely stragglers who were caught on the wrong side when Father destroyed their gateway. They acted alone, and they paid for it with their lives. The truce remains unbroken."

"Well, that is a relief, I must say," said Volstagg before draining his tankard in one go and returning his attention to the leg of lamb.

"Indeed," said Thor. "It would be unfortunate if we had to begin the hostilities anew."

"Do my ears deceive me?" said Fandral. "Or does Prince Thor truly wish for peace with the Frost Giants, after all his grumblings that the war was not concluded decisively enough? Perhaps one of them struck you a little too hard on Midgard."

"Well he did get caught completely unawares and knocked a few hundred yards through the air," said Loki, dropping onto the bench between Thor and Volstagg.

"Loki!" said Sif. She waved over one of the serving maids to bring him some food. "How is your shoulder?"

"It is...nearly mended," said Loki, plainly surprised to have received any concern from that quarter.

"And...you are well?" said Thor, giving him a meaningful look.

"Yes, Brother, I am well," said Loki with a hint of exasperation. "Now were you going to continue the tale or not?"

"Why don't you tell your part first?" said Thor. "I still don't know what happened before I got back to you." Loki looked surprised again, and Thor felt a pang. He really didn't offer his brother a chance to do the telling very often, did he?

"Very well," said Loki. Sif, Volstagg, and Fandral all leaned forward in eagerness. Hogun managed to restrain himself, but his eyes were alight with curiosity too. Loki told them about fighting two of the Jotnar, one of whom could wield seidr almost as effectively as he. "The giant fell, and when I turned to face the woman, my copies transformed into images of her and rounded on me."

"Such a thing is possible?" said Sif, horrified.

"Her skill at seidrcraft must have rivaled my own, so yes," said Loki, who had grown more animated when his audience, taking their cues from Thor and Sif, had remained attentive rather than growing impatient for Thor to take over. Loki flicked his hand over the table between them, and five small figures appeared: four miniature Lokis and the Jotun woman. "These were our positions when I turned, and then—" He waved his hand again, and three of the four Lokis morphed into copies of the woman and advanced on the remaining Loki with her.

They all watched the little figures moving, and even Hogun was leaning forward on his bench now. The woman lunged for Loki and they all cried out in alarm when he did not counter or dodge. Thor was certain this would be the moment when Loki would get stabbed through the shoulder. But both the full-sized Loki and the small figure only smirked. Then the one attacking him dissolved, and he stabbed through it to the one behind it, plainly the real one, for she doubled over and the other two copies then vanished.

"Ha!" said Volstagg. "That'll teach her to try to fool the God of Mischief with his own tricks!" He clapped Loki on the back.

Loki's smirk widened and he made a mock bow where he sat. It occurred to Thor that the moniker Loki had earned centuries ago had rarely been used in so complimentary a fashion. "I'm afraid it all went downhill from there," said Loki. "Alas, my first enemy was not dead." He moved his hand again, and another figure reared up from the side and caught the Loki figure with his ice spear. The woman tossed aside his dagger and closed in on him. Everyone gasped. "And now it's your turn, Brother," he said, closing his fist to make the illusions vanish, to groans all around.

"Well," said Thor, setting down his tankard to free up both hands, "as Loki said, I was knocked hundreds of yards through the air…" He was already reliving it in his mind, and so almost missed the way Loki seemed to shrink back as everyone leaned towards him instead. So he paused and nudged Loki with his elbow. "Actually, do you think you could help me illustrate, or do those images have to come from your own memories?"

"Certainly," said Loki, though the laughter in his tone suggested he was planning to make Thor regret asking. He waved his hand, and a miniature Thor soared over the table and landed with a graceless sprawling tumble in a pile of illusory snow.

"Come, Loki, it can't have looked that bad," said Volstagg, and Fandral and Hogun wore matching frowns.

"No, I'm sure it looked much worse!" said Thor brightly. "But don't forget that I had the Midgardian's shield with me, and Mjolnir had already reached my hand by the time I plowed into the snow. That is important."

Loki replayed the scene with the added details, and he took care to make Thor's landing appear even less dignified this time.

"This is a far superior method of storytelling," Fandral declared with a grin, while Volstagg snorted into his fourth tankard.

"Now, the Frost Beast was coming up right behind me, jaws wide…" Loki made one appear. "I got up just in time to swing Mjolnir upward, and…" It played out almost exactly as it had in real life, except that the miniature Thor was coated in far more snow. Thor continued his descriptions while Loki brought them to life, particularly lingering over the unexpected capabilities of the shield, at which all were suitably impressed.

"Such a dirty trick!" said Fandral when Thor described the feeling of being grabbed on the shoulder by the Jotun.

"I don't know," said Thor, shooting Loki an uncomfortable look. "It seems a rather useful thing to be able to do."

"Well, useful perhaps, but hardly an honorable way to fight," said Volstagg, exchanging perplexed glances with Fandral and Hogun.

"Can we please continue the tale?" said Sif impatiently.

"Of course," said Thor. "The pain only distracted me for a moment." They resumed the account, and the only time Loki did more than use magic to illustrate was right after Thor described blasting the Jotun and the beast back with lightning. The images of Loki, and his two Jotnar opponents reappeared a few feet down the table, just as they had looked where he left off.

"Thor's blast must have fractured the entire ice shelf," he said, "and it distracted them. They'd wasted their time taunting me when they could've gotten to the point." Miniature Loki used the distraction to slay the Jotun woman with a dagger.

"And then I flew back to help Loki," said Thor. Miniature Thor took to the air and reached Loki just in time to prevent his death at the hands of the final Jotun.

"A fine battle!" said Volstagg, slapping the table. He raised his sixth tankard. "To our princes, who have protected Midgard from those beasts just as the Allfather did!"

Sif, Fandral, and Hogun all raised their tankards to crash them against his.

"Come now, they are not beasts," said Thor with a laugh and another glance at Loki. "They did give us war for forty years. No mere beasts could have managed that!"

"Brother, may I speak with you outside?" said Loki. He didn't give Thor a chance to respond before getting up and walking out.

Thor shrugged at his friends, who had all fallen silent, and followed Loki. He was waiting outside, arms folded.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"What do you mean?" said Thor.

"You may have noticed that there were details I deliberately omitted from our recounting, but if you keep looking at me whenever anyone mentions Frost Giants, they're going to work it out."

"Nah, they won't," Thor scoffed. An idea struck him. "We could just tell them, though."

"Absolutely not."

"How come? All would be well. They're your friends!"

Loki ran a hand over his face. " _No."_

"Come on! It doesn't matter to me; why should it matter to them?"

Thor kept smiling and Loki kept glaring.

"If you don't drop it, I'm going to stab you again," he said, then turned and walked a few paces away away.

This particular feast hall and its grounds were on a bit of a hill and near enough the sea to offer a spectacular view of the sunset reflected in the water. "What did Heimdall show you?" said Thor, moving to stand at Loki's side. "Are you troubled by it?"

"Not all of it," said Loki. "I will forever treasure the knowledge of your inability to pronounce 'Sleipnir' as a toddler."

Thor rolled his eyes. "Would you be serious?"

Loki was silent for a moment. He ran his fingers along the stone balustrade in front of them. "My heart belongs to Asgard," he said quietly. "You and Odin and Frigga are my family, and this is my home. Perhaps part of that is the product of this enchantment. Perhaps not. I do not wish to know the answer. What I do know is that there is another claim on me."

Thor watched him, his brow furrowed. His turmoil did not appear so great as it had been that morning. He seemed to have found his footing, and there was new resolve in the set of his jaw. "What claim is that?"

"Farbauti would have kept me. She didn't care about Laufey's laws against keeping runts. He sent me away to die either by starvation or an Aesir sword, and when she tried to fight him, he plunged her own ice dagger into her heart." His tone was even, but his hands clenched into fists as he said it.

"Norns, is there no end to Laufey's crimes?" Thor growled.

"It would appear not. Jotunheim has spent all this time believing her death a suicide, including her other sons, and still he sits on the throne, playing the solemn widower."

Thor reached to grip the back of Loki's neck. "You seek vengeance," he said. "I will help you get it."

"What concern of yours is the fate of the Queen of Jotunheim?" said Loki.

"If Farbauti loved you," said Thor, "then she has my loyalty, and I will see that justice is done for her."

Loki looked around at him with no trace of his usual mask of guile, then put a hand on Thor's arm and slowly nodded.

* * *

I was initially at a complete loss over what to do in this one, but then the Warriors Three came to my rescue. Thanks, gentlemen! It turned out to be a really good place for Thor and Sif to start making good on their resolutions to not overlook Loki so much, and to start nudging the others in the right direction.

How about some Steve next chapter?


	13. Not in Brooklyn Anymore

In the morning, Thor and Loki were once again called before Hlidskjalf. Odin dismissed the guards when they arrived, leaving the three of them the only ones in the throne room. "Heimdall has just informed me that the Midgardians have located the Tesseract," he said. "You should now be able to retrieve it."

"Yes, Father," said Thor. "When do you wish us to depart?"

"It will be a more delicate operation than the rescue of the warrior, so it may take longer to plan. Ideally, you will leave no later than three days hence."

Loki clenched his jaw and looked down.

"Is there a problem?" said Odin.

"No, Father," he said. "It is only that I had hoped to attend to another matter."

"Would this other matter pertain to Jotunheim?"

Loki rounded on Thor. "You _told_ him?"

"I did not!" said Thor indignantly.

"Silence," said Odin. "Thor told me nothing. When I instructed Heimdall that he was to show you your origins if you asked, I did so knowing what the outcome might be." He beckoned to them. "Come here, both of you."

They got to their feet and climbed the golden steps.

"Tell me what troubles you, Loki," said Odin.

Loki couldn't look at him, or at Thor. "You knew," he said. "At the very least, Heimdall told you of Farbauti's fate, or perhaps he showed it to you like he did me. Why have you allowed Laufey to remain on the throne of Jotunheim all these years? The Jotnar unwittingly bow to the man who murdered their queen!"

Odin remained silent until Loki looked at him, which took a while. "I could have removed Laufey—had him executed or thrown in Asgard's dungeons, perhaps. But I could not have made the Jotnar understand the justice of it without compromising you, and that was not a course I was willing to take."

"What do you mean?" said Loki.

"Your existence is the only incontrovertible proof of his lies. To expose him, I would have had to expose your true heritage to Jotunheim, and thereby all the nine realms."

"You could have used other methods to depose him," said Loki.

"Such as assassination?" said Odin shrewdly. Loki could feel Thor's eyes on him, and heat rose in his cheeks. "And how long before the finger of blame was pointed at Asgard? The truce is a fragile one. Laufey's actions led to one war; I was not about to give his death power to start a second. There was no easy path towards holding him accountable for Farbauti's murder, and so I contented myself with knowing that he had failed in his plans for you."

"Then you will not let me do anything for her?" said Loki. He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but he knew it was a futile effort. These particular emotions were too new and raw.

"Did I say that?"

Loki stared at him.

"If you would have justice for Farbauti, you must find a way to get it without compromising Asgard's truce with Jotunheim or being too careless with your own safety. It is unlikely you will succeed if you run off in your anger and carry out the first plan that occurs to you. This is why I insist that you and Thor complete your mission on Midgard first. Use this time to consider very carefully what you will do."

X

Loki had far greater patience than Thor, but the drama of the last few days and the knowledge that he could not immediately pursue vengeance had combined to make him quite restless. Sitting through even one strategy session about how to retrieve the Tesseract without causing problems with the Midgardians was torture. What he really needed now was a good bit of mischief to help him unwind. Happily, Eir provided just the right opportunity for it at the midday meal.

"What is it, Eir?" said Odin when she entered the royal family's private dining hall.

"I've come to report on Steven Rogers, my king."

"Has he awoken?" said Thor, sitting up straighter.

"Not yet, but his body temperature is back to normal and stable, and his wounds are responding more quickly to my healing spells than I expected. He should wake this afternoon."

"Oh, wonderful," said Frigga, looking at her sons. "Then he'll be ready to return to Midgard in time for your own departure."

"Perhaps he will even prove useful," said Odin. "He has worked with the people who have the Tesseract, and he is now in Asgard's debt."

"Indeed," said Loki, keeping his expression carefully neutral as his mind raced with possibilities.

X

"Oh look. The mortal's finally awake."

That was the first thing Steve heard. The voice sounded bored. Steve was very confused. He blinked. His surroundings slowly came into focus, which did not ease his confusion. There was... _a lot_ of gold in here. He tried to sit up. That was a mistake. Everything hurt. He hadn't felt like this since before the serum. If he could still feel pain, then he probably wasn't dead, and this probably wasn't heaven. And besides, heaven wouldn't have this much of a Celtic knotting motif, would it?

He gritted his teeth and fought through the pain to push himself upright, then looked around. The only other person in this room, which vaguely resembled an infirmary, except that all of the textures were wrong, was a young man who looked his age, sprawled in a golden chair with his feet up, apparently engrossed in a book. His black, chin-length hair was slicked back—very different from the military hairstyles Steve was used to—, and he wore the strangest clothes Steve had ever seen. Some kind of tunic in green and black, with silver scales in places, and black leather breeches and boots.

Steve realized that his own clothing didn't feel like the uniform. He looked down at himself and saw that he was wearing a tunic and breeches in a similar style, though his tunic was blue and much less intricate.

"Uh...where are we?"

"Asgard."

That was extremely unhelpful. "What's Asgard?"

"The Realm Eternal. Home of the Aesir."

"I...understood some of those words."

"To be more specific," said the man, casually turning a page, "you are currently several hundred light years from Midgard. Or, as you call it, Earth."

Steve's brain balked at the very suggestion, then rejected it. "Is this some kind of trick by Hydra?" He had no idea what Hydra thought it could gain by trying to make him think he was on another planet, but that was the only possibility that made even a tiny bit of sense.

"I certainly do not _work_ for the same organization as Schmidt, if that's what you're suggesting," said the man, sounding offended.

"How do you know Schmidt?" said Steve.

"Not at all, except that he shot me in the arm before the Gatekeeper could run him through. Good riddance."

"What?" He'd watched Schmidt disintegrate right in front of his eyes when he held that glowing blue cube thing in his hand. "Where are we, really?"

"Look out the window. See for yourself."

Steve frowned at him, but did as he suggested. His muscles were very stiff and his left arm and leg felt particularly sore, but he'd had worse, and he already felt better than he had a minute ago. He got up and slowly walked to the window, and his jaw dropped. He'd been all over Europe in the last three years, and he had never seen architecture like this before. But more importantly, there were _not_ supposed to be _planets_ hanging in the sky.

"I'm on an alien planet," he said faintly.

"Ahem. _You_ are currently the alien on _this_ planet. Don't be rude."

"How are we speaking the same language?" said Steve, briefly glancing back at the man, who snorted.

"I assure you, we are not."

"H-how did I get here?"

"My brother and I went to collect you. We thought we were bringing you here to give you a funeral befitting a warrior, but it turned out you were alive. Imagine our embarrassment."

"Why would you want to hold a funeral for someone from a different planet?"

"Because you seemed unlikely to be found by any of your own people, and our Gatekeeper thought it a great injustice that one such as you would be forgotten in the ice."

"Is this the same Gatekeeper who killed Schmidt? How did he even know about either of us?"

"He can see every soul in the nine realms. Yours and Schmidt's apparently stood out."

"Could you stop reading that book and look at me?" said Steve, now on the verge of losing all patience. He had survived the crash for reasons that were now making his entire reality come apart at the seams, and this guy was just sitting there _reading_ like their conversation wasn't worth his full attention. "Who the hell are you anyway?"

In a flash of greenish-gold light, the chair and book were gone, and the man was standing straight-backed, facing Steve, now wearing _armor_ , including a golden helmet with large, curving horns. He looked like a medieval king, except that Steve had never imagined a medieval king having such a dangerous glint in his eye. "You stand in the presence of Loki, the God of Mischief, mortal, and you will show me proper respect."

"You haven't really given me a reason to," said Steve, dropping into a fighting stance. He didn't know what this guy's deal was or what was going on, but he sure as hell wasn't going to treat him like a god.

"Let's see what we can do about that," said Loki with a grin. He waved his hands. Steve raised his fists, but before he could use them, there was another flash of greenish-gold light, and this time it was blinding.

X

Thor strode cheerfully to the healing room. He was looking forward to properly meeting Steven Rogers and discussing his unusual weapon. Perhaps he would even like to come to the training grounds to demonstrate his skill with it. Surely there would be time for that before they had to depart.

"Is Rogers awake yet?" he said when he arrived.

"He might be," said Eir. "Prince Loki requested the honor of being the one to greet him when he did." She pointed to the closed door to the recovery hall.

Thor frowned. Loki might've _told_ him that was what he intended to do. Had they not shared the task of bringing him here equally? He walked over to the door and pushed it open. Loki was sitting reading not far from Rogers's sickbed. "Loki, why didn—" He broke off, because three steps into the room, the image changed. There was no sign of Steven Rogers at all, and Loki was standing in his full ceremonial regalia before an eagle, which scrabbled on the floor, squawking and flapping its wings about wildly.

Thor folded his arms and stared at Loki. "Change him back," he said.

"Oh come _on_ ," said Loki over the eagle's screeches. "I got stabbed through the shoulder retrieving this man. I'm entitled to a bit of fun. Besides, if you were familiar with his nation's symbolism, you would appreciate how hilarious this is."

Thor's expression did not soften.

Loki gave an aggrieved sigh. "You are a dreadful spoilsport, Brother." He waved his hands, and in a flash of seidr, the eagle turned into an extremely red-faced, disheveled Steven Rogers, who wasted no time in slamming his fist directly into Loki's jaw. Loki didn't move, no doubt because he expected it to hurt the mortal more than it hurt him. Instead, he was knocked off his feet by the blow, and there was an odd shift in air pressure as the spells he'd cast on the room to avoid detection dissipated.

Thor smiled. "You're right! That _was_ hilarious."

"Oh, shut up," said Loki, rubbing his jaw and scowling, his armor now gone.

"What the _hell_ did you just do to me?!" Rogers shouted.

"Only a temporary transfiguration," said Loki, getting to his feet. "It was perfectly harmless."

"I'm sorry about my brother," said Thor, moving to stand between them. "He occasionally takes his jokes too far. I am Thor, son of Odin. Welcome to Asgard."

* * *

I can't believe I was initially just going to have Loki be mildly annoying to Steve. That would've been such a waste. Also, while Loki definitely does seem like enough of a nerd to do research before he pranks someone, I'm not sure he'd have any way of knowing which specific species of eagle to turn Steve into, so I'm imagining that he wasn't being *quite* as clever as he thought he was (which makes it even funnier, at least for me).

I'm not sure I'll be able to get another chapter up before I see Infinity War Thursday night, but hopefully I will survive it with my will to write intact, because I'm looking forward to more Steve on Asgard shenanigans.


	14. A Warrior's Welcome

Steve felt like his brain was overloading. A minute ago, he'd had wings, talons, tailfeathers, and a beak, an experience so bizarre and disorienting that he didn't have words for it. The only sounds he'd been able to make were shrill screeches, his senses had gone completely haywire, and he'd spent the entire time flopping madly on the floor because none of his limbs would respond the way he wanted them to. And then, just as suddenly, he was back to normal. All this on top of the already insane fact that he wasn't on Earth anymore, but instead in a place that put the Emerald City and every fantasy setting he'd ever read about growing up to shame.

And now there was a huge blond guy who looked like a real life Conan the Barbarian trying to welcome him like none of this was the slightest bit unusual. So Steve did the only thing that occurred to him: he stuck out his hand. "Uh, Steve," he said. "Captain Steve Rogers."

Instead of shaking his hand, Thor clasped him by the forearm, smiling broadly, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Well met!" he said. His jovial attitude was somehow even larger than he was, which was both surreal and kinda reassuring, even though Loki was still scowling behind him.

"He's not gonna do that again, is he?" said Steve. Loki didn't seem to be continuing his attack and Thor didn't seem to consider him a threat, but he wanted to make sure.

Before either of them could respond, a tall, thin woman with intricately braided hair and a billowing, floor-length dress came striding into the room. "Did I hear that correctly, Prince Loki?" she said. She sounded like a schoolteacher who was about to break out the cane. "You performed transfiguration magic on a mortal who is _still under my care_?"

Loki's eyes widened, and then he gave a charming smile while backing a couple steps away from her.

" _Out_ ," she ordered, pointing at the door. "Or I shall give you a reason to be in my healing hall that you will not like." He left immediately.

Thor chuckled. "It is unwise to cross Eir. Her wrath is more fearsome than any warrior's, when roused."

"As Prince Thor well knows," said Eir, but her attention was on Steve. "Be still," she said, just as commandingly as she'd been with Loki.

"Yes, ma'am," said Steve. She nodded and reached towards him, but when her hands started giving off a reddish-gold light, he jumped. She gave him such a stern look that he felt like a misbehaving child, which wasn't fair at all. "Sorry," he said and forced himself to stand still. She moved her hands over all of the parts of him that had been the most sore when he first woke up, with the result that those parts _turned see-through_. Only his military experience kept him from flipping his wig, and only the effects of the serum kept him from fainting dead away from shock. A few things clicked into place. Magic. These people were using magic. He was on a different planet, and magic was real.

"Fortunately for him, it does not appear that the prince's spell undid any of my hard work," said Eir. "Your injuries are mended sufficiently that you need not remain in the healing hall if you would prefer to leave it."

"Marvelous!" said Thor. "Then he shall feast with me and my friends tonight!"

Steve couldn't really think of anything to do but allow himself to be led out of the room by Thor. "So, uh, how long since I went into the ice?" he asked.

"Oh, four or five days?" said Thor.

It had been a Wednesday when he crashed the plane, so that would make this either Sunday or Monday. "So two princes from another planet really just stopped by Earth to rescue me out of the goodness of your hearts? Do you do that a lot?"

"Well, we'd quarreled the night before," said Thor, "so Father sending us to Midgard was really more of a punishment."

Out of nowhere, Loki fell into step beside them in the corridor, and Steve stopped in his tracks. "Oh, relax," said Loki. "I've had my fun." He shot Steve a sly grin. "For now."

"Brother, you will give Captain Rogers a very poor opinion of us if you persist," said Thor.

"I suppose we couldn't have that."

Something else suddenly clicked into place. He was walking down a corridor side-by-side with Loki, who had called himself the God of Mischief, and a guy named Thor Odinson, who had a gigantic warhammer hanging off his belt.

"Wait are you guys Thor and Loki as in... _Norse mythology_?" he said.

Thor looked amused. "More or less."

"Most of that drivel comes from one drunken Midgardian skald who stumbled into the Water of Sights centuries before we were born, got possessed by the Norns, and saw a bit of the future," said Loki, sounding annoyed. "It was hardly a faithful account, and that was before anyone else could add their own embellishments."

On Steve's other side, Thor was grinning.

"Not a word, Brother," said Loki, and Steve decided it would be wiser not to ask.

X

Steve spent the remainder of the day being buffeted about by Thor's whims, but even though he was still extremely disoriented, it was surprisingly fun. Eating in the feast hall with the princes and their friends reminded him of meals with the Howling Commandos, except for the part where they were eating a real feast instead of military rations and he had to stop himself from rubbernecking every time he noticed another unbelievable thing in his surroundings. And even though Dugan was a husband and father, Steve and the Commandos had never had a chance to meet his family, but Volstagg had brought his wife Hildegund and a whole pack of children. The youngest of these spent much of the meal being entertained by Loki's magic, and nobody present seemed the least bit wary around him.

Thor, Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three all wanted to hear Steve's tales of battle, particularly those involving his shield. Their enthusiasm for it was a little jarring. His experience of war was not something he would describe as fun, but when they shared their own stories, they sounded like eager kids. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, but it did sound like most of their opponents were mythical monsters like dragons, not soldiers from enemy nations.

"And how do you find Asgard, Captain Rogers?" said Fandral. They'd been at the hall for at least two hours, and the quantity of food they were all putting away was making Steve feel pretty dainty by comparison, even though he'd cleaned his plate three times and emptied his tankard twice.

"It's incredible," he said. "It's like I went back in time and way into the future all at once." It was starting to feel like the alcohol on Asgard was very capable of getting him drunk, so he held the tankard out for another refill when the serving maid came around again with the pitcher. Hildegund came over soon after, kissed Volstagg on his bearded cheek, and passed him a sleeping toddler.

"You should come with us to the sparring grounds tomorrow," said Sif.

"Yes," said Thor, shooting her a grin before turning to Steve. "Let us see if we cannot give you better sport than the mortal soldiers you faced in battle!"

"Uh," said Steve, glancing over at where Loki was sitting on the floor, surrounded by children who were laughing and clapping while he made glowing images dance around him. "You wouldn't be using magic on me, would you?"

Fandral laughed. "I see you have already been on the wrong side of one of Loki's spells."

"Was it you he transfigured, or was it your weapon?" said Hogun.

Steve looked back at them, eyebrows raised. "So...this happens a lot. Loki turning people into animals as a joke."

Volstagg raised his tankard. "Boar."

"Peacock," said Fandral.

"Frog," said Thor.

"Fish," said Hogun.

"Cat," said Sif. They all clunked their tankards together and drained them.

Steve drank his as well. Knowing that Loki had done this to his own brother and friends made him feel a lot better about it.

X

A couple more tankards of ale later, Steve returned to the palace, occasionally using Thor or Loki for support when he stumbled. He hadn't managed to get completely sauced, but his coordination was suffering and he felt warm and very fond of everything around him.

"I saw you casting a wistful eye towards Volstagg and Hildegund," said Thor. "Were you thinking of your lady on Midgard?"

"I don't have a lady on Midg—Earth," said Steve, but he couldn't help imagining Peggy kissing him on the cheek and passing him a sleeping kid with blond hair and brown eyes. He felt a powerful ache in his chest.

"But what of the one whose image is in your compass?"

Steve suddenly felt much more sober. "You found my compass?" Thor had shown him the room he'd be sleeping in, but there had been no sign of the compass with his uniform and shield.

Thor handed the small object over. "My apologies for not returning it to you sooner. I'd nearly forgotten I had it."

"Where did you find it?" said Loki.

"In the ice," said Thor. "When we were searching for his weapon, not knowing we had already discovered it."

Steve ran his thumb over the case of the standard issue compass like it was a priceless treasure, then it open and stared at the photograph, his final exchange with Peggy replaying in his mind. He'd been so sure he was about to die, and he'd heard the tears in her voice, and she'd helped him keep his courage by bantering with him like she always did.

"Come," said Thor. "You cannot tell me she is not your lady when you look on her image so fondly."

"She's not—I mean, I kissed her before I went up in that plane, and we're supposed to go dancing on Saturday." He cleared his throat. "What about you and Sif? How long has that been going on?"

Loki burst out laughing and Thor balked. "Sif has been one of my dearest friends since childhood! Why would you suppose there is anything more to it?"

"Buddy, she looks at you like you hung the moon," said Steve. He glanced up at the night sky and his brow furrowed. "Uh, moons. And maybe it's just the differences between my culture and yours, but you two seemed pretty close."

"Oh, this is glorious," said Loki. "I have tried to tell you for centuries, Brother. Perhaps the fact that a mortal who has only spent a handful of hours with you already sees it will finally convince you."

"But—but—what of Haldor?" Thor spluttered. "She mourned him for a hundred years!"

"Yes, because unlike you, Haldor actually noticed she was a woman. She only loved him because she couldn't have you."

Thor frowned deeply. They were almost at the palace now.

"So, look," said Steve, after they had walked in silence (smug in Loki's case, brooding in Thor's) for nearly a full minute. "I'm really grateful you guys pulled me out of that wreck and got me patched up, but when can I go back to Earth? We're in the middle of a war and I got people counting on me."

"We will certainly return you to your people," said Thor.

"There is only a small matter we would ask your assistance with," said Loki.

"Yeah?" said Steve warily. "What's that?"

"The artifact Schmidt used to power his weapons of war," said Thor. "Our father placed it on Midgard over a thousand years ago, but your realm is clearly no longer a safe place for it."

"You mean that shiny blue cube that was on the warplane?" said Steve.

"The Tesseract," said Loki. "Yes."

"You want to get it back?" said Steve. "Not sure I can help with that. Thing burned through the floor of the plane and fell into the ocean."

"Where it was discovered this morning by a man of your acquaintance," said Thor. "One Howard Stark."

Steve forced down any feelings of hurt that Howard, a man he'd come to rely on and consider a friend, would have prioritized recovering this Tesseract thing over finding him. Howard had no reason to think Steve was still alive, and it was more important to secure Hydra's power source before it could fall back into Nazi hands than it was to recover a fallen soldier. "So I help you get the Tesseract and you'll take me home?" he said.

"We'll take you home and recover the Tesseract regardless," said Thor. "But your assistance would smooth our way. Retrieving you aside, it has been centuries since we last set foot on Midgard, and it has clearly changed a great deal."

"What kind of timeline are we working with?" said Steve.

"A few days," said Loki. "We have yet to determine our strategy."

"Am I invited to the meetings about that?" said Steve.

"Of course," said Thor.

"Good." Steve caught Loki watching him and avoided his gaze. He had some questions for the one who'd set them this mission before he'd be giving them any help completing it.

* * *

Infinity War did not sap my will to write! Ha! But this chapter was still kinda hard. I spent like two hours researching pre-Tolkien fantasy to find out what kinds of things Steve would be able to use as reference points to understand Asgard, and I came up with a list of ten:

The Hobbit (original version)  
Conan the Barbarian  
Weird Tales  
Alice in Wonderland  
Peter Pan  
The Wizard of Oz  
The Wood Beyond the World  
The Worm Ouroboros  
Idylls of the King  
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Barely any of this research made it into the chapter, but it was still worth it. I'm pretty confident that a skinny, sickly kid like Steve would've read all the fantasy and sci fi he could get his hands on, and probably a bunch of comic books too. I haven't read some of the items on this list, but I really want to now.

There's one shot of Volstagg with his wife and kids in Thor: The Dark World, but did you guys know that in the comics, they have at least fourteen kids?! So there goes my theory that Aesir have lower birth rates than humans.

I don't care that we got Thor's canon age in Infinity War, because the writers have clearly never paid attention to their own timeline and him being 1500 makes no sense with everything else we already know about dates. So I'm sticking to my guns. As far as I'm concerned, Thor was born in 985 and Loki in 1005, and they are the equivalent of guys in their early 20s. I'm using that weird Norn cave from Ultron as the in-story source of Norse mythology, since Norse mythology really doesn't work with this timeline (because, aside from Thor and Loki being too young to have been involved in it, Norway was already converting to Christianity by 965 when the war began).


	15. The War Room

Steve had seen the inside of a couple different war rooms since the brass had started taking him seriously, but their brick, mortar, and maps were nothing to the room Thor and Loki brought him to after breakfast the following morning. Like the infirmary and the bedroom, it had the same structure he was used to, but that was where the similarities ended. There was as much gold as there was everywhere else in the palace, and there was something medieval about the furniture and architecture, but his eyes were drawn to the center of the room, where there was a vast round table. Floating above it was something that resembled a sprawling tree, except that it was composed of tiny pinpricks of light. Steve gaped at it in amazement.

Loki walked forward and reached up to one of the tree's branches. That portion expanded and everything else faded away. It kept expanding dizzyingly until a single blue and green sphere filled the space above the table, accompanied by a smaller, grayish-white sphere covered in craters. After a few seconds, Steve realized what he was looking at. "That's Earth!"

"Indeed," said Loki.

The sphere rotated. It was night in the western hemisphere, and landmasses were only distinguishable from ocean by fine spiderwebs of light spreading out from cities. As soon as he found Long Island, a wave of homesickness crashed over him. It had been over eighteen months since he'd been back to Brooklyn, and right now he wasn't even sure he was in the same galaxy.

His feelings must've shown on his face, because Thor clapped him on the shoulder. "I see Asgard is no substitute for your own realm."

"Yeah, well, there's no place like home," said Steve. Neither prince reacted to the quote, of course, which intensified the homesickness.

"Good, you are all here," said a new voice. An older man with white hair and beard had entered the room. He was a few inches shorter than any of them, dressed in a similar richly embroidered tunic/surcoat type outfit everyone on Asgard seemed to wear when they weren't in some kind of armor, he had a gold patch over his right eye, and he carried an elaborate spear.

"Father," said Thor. Steve's eyes went wide. So this was Odin.

"Captain Rogers," said Odin, his one eye fixing on Steve.

"Your majesty," said Steve, only barely managing not to stutter. He hoped they weren't expecting him to bow. He was willing to show the same respect he would to the leaders of an allied nation, but Odin wasn't his king and he certainly wasn't his god, so that was as far as he was willing to go with it. Apparently it wasn't going to be an issue, because Odin took one of the seats around the table and Thor and Loki followed suit on either side, leaving the seat opposite Odin for Steve.

Odin made a gesture similar to the one Loki had with the floating light images, and it zoomed in again until they were all looking at the same SSR lab where Peggy had tested the effectiveness of his shield. Howard was there, wearing goggles and thick gloves as he poked around the Tesseract. Steve realized his mouth was hanging open and shut it.

"It should be a fairly simple matter to get in and out with it," said Loki. He looked at Steve and, with a ripple of green-gold light, became Howard Stark. "Wouldn't you say, Rogers?" He even _sounded_ like Howard, though the accent was all wrong.

"Yes, it would be simple," said Odin, while Loki turned back into himself. "If the goal was merely to retrieve it. However, you must do so without implicating one of the mortals or adding fuel to the ongoing war."

"Then why not march in and claim it as princes of Asgard?" said Thor. Steve caught Loki rolling his eyes.

"Why don't you answer that, Captain?" said Odin.

"Uh, we're not exactly used to the idea of immortal Vikings from outer space. I'm not saying there's anything we could do about it if you tried that, but you'd be announcing to Earth that aliens are both real and dangerous."

Thor frowned. "Why shouldn't the people of Earth know that?"

"Because dangerous aliens are Asgard's concern," said Odin, "at least until such time as the mortals are capable of defending themselves."

"Wait, are you saying there are other aliens out there?" said Steve.

"Of course," said Odin. "Asgard has protected Midgard from attack by many different foes over the ages." He did something at his end of the table and the image of the SSR lab was replaced with essentially a short film of battles (except that unlike a regular film reel, this was three-dimensional, crisp, and lifelike) like nothing Steve had ever seen before. Ships flying through space, gold-helmeted infantry and armored women on winged horses fighting against creatures that looked far less human than they did. "Your realm has long been coveted for its resources and its position in the cosmos."

Steve had never felt so small and powerless, and for him that was saying a lot. Odin was talking about war on a scale that made World War 2 look like a schoolyard squabble. And yet seeing it only solidified the reservations Steve had felt since the night before.

The violent images of the past reverted to the current SSR lab, where Howard had now been joined by Peggy. Steve's breath caught. Peggy and Howard shared a look that indicated to Steve how little sleep either of them had gotten lately. Their mouths moved, but there was no sound. Still, Steve distinctly caught the words "Captain Rogers" on Peggy's lips, and though she was doing a good job of maintaining a stiff upper lip, Howard's expression was full of regret and apology when he replied. Steve could guess what that was about. She wanted to know if there were any updates on locating him and the downed Hydra plane, and Howard had no good news for her.

"All will be well," said Thor, making Steve jump and look around. "You'll be back among them soon."

Steve nodded.

"Now," said Odin. He closed his fist and the image faded to nothing, leaving the room a little dim with only the braziers along the walls to light it. "I have heard suggestions from each of my sons on how to proceed, one too subtle, the other too direct. What course would you recommend?"

Steve swallowed. He was really going to do this. He looked Odin straight in the eye. "Before I give you any suggestions, there's something I need to know."

There was a pause. Odin's expression was impossible to read, but Steve didn't look away. "Very well."

"Loki said your Gatekeeper can see every soul in the nine realms. Assuming he meant it literally, which I'm pretty sure I can do considering what I just saw, you've known all along that Schmidt had the Tesseract."

"I have," said Odin. "Heimdall informed me the moment Schmidt murdered its protector and took it for himself."

"Did you try to get it back?"

"No."

"Okay," said Steve. It was getting harder and harder to control his speaking volume. "So you knew a man like Schmidt had taken this infinite power source that you only put on Earth to keep safe, you knew what he was doing with it, and you did nothing."

Thor jumped to his feet. "Have a care what you accuse my father of, Rogers," he said, leaning over the table, more than a hint of a threat in his voice. "Do not forget that you are here as his guest."

"Sit down, Thor," said Odin, not taking his eye off Steve. Thor grudgingly obeyed. "You are correct. I knew what Schmidt was doing with the Tesseract and did nothing."

"Why?!" said Steve, outraged. Did that mean Asgard was closer to being on the Nazis' side?

"Because of you."

Steve wasn't the only one who stared at Odin in disbelief at these words. So did Loki and Thor.

"By the time Schmidt was in a position to carry out his plans, you and your shieldbrothers had begun thwarting him at every turn."

"At a cost!" Steve shouted. Erskine. Bucky. Thousands more. "Good men died fighting against something that shouldn't even have been on the planet to begin with!"

"You are confident that each of these men would have lived had Schmidt been limited to Midgardian technology? Had it appeared that Schmidt's path to victory was clear, Asgard would have intervened, but if we fought every battle mankind was capable of winning on their own, you would still be living in huts and defending yourselves with clubs."

Steve stared into that calm, ancient face. Some part of his brain understood the logic of what Odin was saying, but his greatest loss was too fresh for logic to be very comforting. He got to his feet. "I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to get the Tesseract back without my help." With that, he left the room.

X

"Let him go," said Odin when Thor made to get up and go after Rogers.

Loki could hardly believe he'd just watched a mortal man take on the Allfather without so much as flinching. Even Thor had rarely succeeded at it, and there had been times when tempers had flown high between them. Really, the only one Loki had ever seen handle Odin more fearlessly than that was Frigga.

"How could you let him speak to you that way?" Thor demanded. "No Aesir would dare—"

"Hmm, except my son?" said Odin, one eyebrow raised. Loki coughed and bit back a smirk.

Thor went red, but did not appear placated. "What will the other realms think if it becomes known that a Midgardian can come into the King of Asgard's private council chamber, shout at him, and leave without being dismissed?"

"Do you intend to make it known to them?" said Odin. Thor went even redder. Odin turned to Loki. "Do you?"

"Certainly not."

"Captain Rogers is well acquainted with the devastation of war," said Odin. "It has not been a glorious adventure for him. It took his father before he was even born, it has consumed and transformed his entire culture over the course of his adult life, and it has cost him more than one of the people he was closest to. He could have stood aside and left the fight to stronger men. He was in fact told to do so many times over, and no one would have begrudged him for it. But he saw a tyrant oppressing the weak and felt compelled to act, long before he was granted his superior strength and stature. There is much you could learn from him. Both of you."

Thor folded his arms, looking a bit sulky. "How?" said Loki, preferring to address the logistical problems with that suggestion rather than examine how he felt about being offered a mortal for a role model. "He has declined to work with us."

"Oh, I would not be so certain of that," said Odin.

* * *

There wasn't really anywhere to fit this in the chapter, but what I'm picturing for this "war room" is that it's located directly underneath the throne room, and is in fact powered by Hlidskjalf, which is how it has access to these images. And the scenes from previous battles would be actual archived footage stored in that console.

It took a while to figure out how to write Odin and Steve's conversation. I feel like depending on where he is in his arc, Steve would have very different problems with the idea of helping get the Tesseract away from his own allies so the Asgardians can have it. This is still the same Steve who voluntarily let himself be experimented on by the government, not the Steve who ended SHIELD because of all the Hydra infiltration or the Steve who threw down his shield because he'd rather stop being Captain America than side with Tony about the Accords and Bucky. So I think the non-jaded Steve of the '40s would mainly be angry that these all-powerful space Vikings are only bothering to get the Tesseract back now that Schmidt isn't wreaking havoc with it anymore.


	16. Favored Guest

So I was all pleased with myself for succeeding in updating this fic after _Infinity War_ came out, and then it took me two whole months to finish another one. I really shouldn't make bold claims about how immune I think I am to writer's block over any given story.

* * *

Steve had pieced together what he could of the layout of the palace in his one day since regaining consciousness, so he was able to find his way outside without too much trouble. He was still bursting with anger and frustration after his confrontation with Odin, and the breathtaking view of the city from here wasn't helping.

Yes, he, the Commandos, and the SSR had defeated Schmidt and Hydra, preventing them from using the Tesseract to carry out their plans. But how different could it all have been if they'd had help from these people? What good was it to protect the Earth from external threats when the internal ones might be enough to end civilization as they knew it? For a moment, Steve allowed his imagination to run wild. If Asgard had played a more active role, Schmidt never would have been able to make a move. Hell, what about the rest of the war? Would it even have happened? Would the first World War?

He thought of the framed photograph that had hung over the mantel in the tenement he grew up in, of a man with features very like his own (except for the mustache) standing arm in arm with his mother. She wore a wedding dress and he wore his infantry uniform. The faces were slightly blurred, and Steve had heard the story behind that many times. The photographer asked them to stand still and say "prunes," but Joe hadn't been able to resist cracking a joke under his breath just before the shutter closed. The image had caught them both mid-laugh, to the photographer's dismay. Steve had spent his entire childhood imagining what things would have been like if the laughing man in that photograph had survived the war. All the things they could have done together. Maybe he would have had younger brothers and sisters just like Bucky did. Sarah Rogers had been the best mom any kid could've asked for, but even she couldn't quite fill the hole left by a father.

Steve knew he was only torturing himself thinking of it. It had taken his own country years to get directly involved in the current war, so why should he expect an extraterrestrial nation to get involved? How could he know his life would be any happier if they had? Or anyone else's? Maybe the price of Asgardian intervention would have been becoming their subjects and losing the freedom to govern themselves.

"Captain Rogers!"

Steve gave a start and turned to face Sif, who was striding towards him with an eager smile on her face. He forced himself to smile in return. "Good morning, Lady Sif," he said, his hand automatically moving to tip a hat that he wasn't wearing. He attempted to cover the awkward movement by running his fingers through his hair. It also occurred to him that he hadn't been able to shave since he woke up from the ice. He hadn't noticed before because nearly every man on Asgard sported full beards.

"To you as well," she said brightly. "Are you ready to come to the training grounds? You did agree to let us test your mettle, and we intend to hold you to that."

"You don't want to wait for Thor and Loki?" said Steve. He still wasn't entirely sure what privileges he was afforded as a guest, such as whether or not he was free to leave the palace grounds without the royal family's knowledge.

"Why should we postpone our fun just because the Allfather wants to keep them in meetings all morning?" said Sif.

Well, if she didn't see a problem with it, then why should Steve? "Lead the way."

X

Sparring against Sif and the Warriors Three proved to be a much more effective distraction than the view from the palace. The difference in physical strength and combat experience meant that fighting them felt a lot like fighting bigger guys before the serum had, with the significant difference that these fights were _fun_.

He realized within the first few seconds of his bout against Sif (Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg had allowed her the opportunity to go first without so much as a hint of protest, and Steve had nervously followed their lead) that he would probably lose a fight against an Asgardian _child_ if the kid didn't hold back. They each pressed him to within an inch of his ability and seemed delighted with what he could do, and he felt like he was doing well when he saw a faint glint of sweat on Fandral's skin. Sif and Hogun were particularly interested in his boxer fighting style, as it was so different from their own approaches to hand-to-hand combat.

Individual bouts eventually turned into training sessions with each type of weaponry. For opponents, Steve had expected them to procure some kind of practice dummies stuffed with straw, with targets painted on their chests. Instead, Sif prodded at a control panel like the one in the war room, and fully animated, tangible figures woven of golden energy sprang into being. Steve was so transfixed by them at first that he nearly took a shining club to the stomach before he remembered the sword maneuver Sif had just shown him. His favorite of their weapons to use against these simulations was Hogun's mace, Hridgandr, and all four of the warriors thoroughly enjoyed their turns with Steve's shield.

The sun was high overhead when Volstagg declared that it was time to break for the midday meal. Suddenly aware of how much of an appetite he'd worked up, Steve readily agreed. They went to a much smaller dining hall than the one from the previous night, and the food was somewhat lighter than all the rich stews, meats, and pies at dinner, with mainly breads, cheeses, and fruits on the table. The only available drinks were still various wines, meads, and ales. None of them were as strong as the ones served at dinner, but Steve was beginning to wonder if Asgardians ever actually drank water.

When Fandral caught him scratching at his stubble, he gestured at him with his fork. "At what age do Midgardian men typically begin growing in their beards?" he asked.

"Anywhere from sixteen to mid-twenties, I guess," said Steve.

"You do age astonishingly quickly," said Volstagg.

"Why, when did you start growing that?" Steve pointed at the bushy auburn beard that extended several inches.

"I was but a lad of six hundred and fifty when mine began to grow!" said the large man, puffing out his chest and stroking the beard like it was a cat.

"Yes, and his stomach soon followed his beard's example," said Fandral.

Volstagg harrumphed. "There's nothing wrong with a healthy enjoyment of good food and drink. My Hildegund still says I am as handsome as the day she first laid eyes on me, so you may say whatever you like and know that it has no effect."

Sif rolled her eyes. "Thor had his beard even younger than you."

"Which of course _you_ noticed," Fandral muttered slyly, earning him an elbow in the ribs from her.

"Meanwhile Loki still has yet to sprout as much as a whisker," said Volstagg. "The poor lad."

"Is that a problem?" said Steve. "Some guys just never grow great beards."

"Perhaps it wouldn't have been a problem if Loki hadn't made it into one," said Fandral. "Though I don't know any other Aesir or Vanir man without a beard. You see, the decades went by after Thor's started growing in. Mine followed, and Hogun's, and all our other friends', while Loki's jaw remained as bald as an infant's backside. After enduring a certain amount of...good-natured teasing from the other lads—"

"Like you?" said Steve, eyebrow raised.

" _And_ others," said Fandral. "It was nothing unreasonable. But then he turned up for training and lessons with a faint shadow on his jaw that gradually became a respectable beard, and we all thought that was the end of that."

"How is that a problem?" said Steve, confused.

"Well, he managed to keep it going for a good few years before slipping up, but eventually we found out that the beard wasn't really there at all! He'd merely crafted an illusory one. Once the game was up, the teasing returned in force. Perhaps we got a bit carried away with it at that point."

"You could have refrained," said Hogun.

"We could have," Volstagg agreed, looking sheepish. "But we did not. And we suffered the consequences."

"Consequences?" said Steve.

"Not long after Asgard discovered the truth of Loki's beardlessness," said Fandral, "each man who had mocked him for it woke up with an entirely bare chin."

"Hildegund couldn't look at me for weeks," Volstagg lamented.

"Hogun was the only one of us with the sense not to make smart remarks about Loki's facial hair," said Sif, "And for that he was spared, but he shaved his anyway just so these two would stop gazing wistfully at his chin." Her chagrined expression caught Steve's attention.

"Wait, what did he do to you?"

She grimaced. "Just because I lack a beard doesn't mean I don't have _hair_ ," she said. "It is just as easily cut."

"Yes, and that is why nobody has mentioned beards in Loki's hearing in four hundred years," said Volstagg.

"It did take Thor the longest to drop it, though," said Fandral, leaning in closer to Steve and lowering his voice conspiratorially. "For about a decade, he went through a cycle of growing out his beard and having it vanish again every other month."

Steve snorted.

"Now let's see, what other stories can we entertain our guest with?" said Sif. "Perhaps one that is less humiliating for all of us?"

"Oh, I know," said Fandral, perking up in his seat. "How about the wedding of Thrym?"

Sif and Volstagg exchanged grins while Hogun chuckled and shook his head.

"Well now I have to know," said Steve amicably.

"It was the very first time Thor took Mjolnir off Asgard with him," said Volstagg, waving to the serving maid for another platter of food.

"Yes, and it took him all of a day to get it stolen by a giant," said Fandral.

"A giant?" said Steve. "How'd a giant manage to sneak up on him and steal that hammer without him noticing?"

"Thor had imbibed rather too much ale that night," said Volstagg. "But to be fair, so had the rest of us."

"We'd had quite the lively day fighting the draugr that were attacking a Vanir village," said Sif.

"Undead creatures," Hogun explained. "Very unpleasant." Steve made a face. Was _everything_ in fantasy books real?

"We were as drunk on ale as on the thrill of seeing Thor wield the great hammer at last," Sif continued. "What we didn't know was that the draugr had been stirred up and goaded into their attack by a clan of hill giants. Their chief, Thrym, had been trying by a number of dastardly means to claim the hand of Lady Freya Njordsdottir—a second cousin of Thor and Loki's on Queen Frigga's side. His aim with the draugr was to set them upon the villagers and then heroically slay them and demand Freya's hand as reward, but we thwarted him by getting to the draugr first. So he took Mjolnir ransom."

"Thor had boasted for all to hear that the Allfather had finally gifted him Mjolnir when he came of age. Returning home without it would have been as good as declaring that he was still just a boy," said Hogun.

"Yes," said Fandral, "and Thrym believed Thor would do anything to get it back, even promoting his cousin's marriage to such a treacherous fiend."

"He was foolish to think it," said Volstagg. "Thor would never dream of forcing anyone into marriage with one of those brutes, especially his own cousin, but Loki worked out an ingenious way to get Mjolnir back and free the Vanir of these giants in one stroke."

Fandral dissolved into a fit of snickering at this point, and Sif had the side of her fist pressed hard to her lips. Steve was growing more and more intrigued. "That wasn't the time he turned Thor into a frog, was it?" he asked, raising his tankard to his mouth. He was going to miss Asgardian drinks when he went back to Earth.

"Oh, no, I think Thor would have preferred that," said Fandral. "No, Loki's plan was to dress Thor in Freya's wedding gown and carry on with the wedding."

Steve sprayed ale all over the table, to uproarious laughter from Thor and Loki's friends. Volstagg pounded him on the back, which really didn't help, but he managed to stop coughing after a few breathless seconds. "And the giants just...fell for that? Is Lady Freya just a really muscular dame, or—"

"Not especially," said Sif. "But hill giants' eyesight is rather poor in daylight, and the height difference doesn't help."

"But how would that get him access to the hammer?"

They all frowned at him. "Is it not customary among Midgardians to exchange weapons in a wedding?" said Volstagg.

Steve blinked. "Uh, no. We do rings." Their frowns deepened, and he shook his head. "So the idea was that if Thor posed as the bride, Thrym would just hand Mjolnir back to him?"

"Yes," said Hogun.

"Huh," said Steve.

"Thor complained endlessly until Loki suggested he was too afraid to do it," said Fandral. "And because none of us had a better plan, he agreed."

"Admittedly, we didn't try very hard to come up with a better plan," Volstagg chortled.

"Thor looked quite fetching in that gown, and wedding crown" said Fandral. "He turned down Loki's offer to actually transfigure him into Freya's likeness—thank the Norns; it wouldn't have been half so funny if he hadn't. And the plan was a success. They got far enough into the ceremony for the exchange of weapons. Thrym handed over Mjolnir, and when he bent to claim a what would have been a surprisingly whiskery kiss from his bride, he got a facefull of hammer instead."

"Then the bridesmaid turned back into Loki, who dropped the cloaking spell on all of us, and we had quite a merry battle!" said Volstagg. He drained the last of his tankard and punctuated the tale by hurling it to the ground with a cry of "Another!" Sif, Fandral, and Hogun all did the same.

This was not something that had happened the previous night, and Steve stared at the shards of tankard in surprise. When he looked back up, they were all staring expectantly at him. "Uh…" He hastily downed the rest of his drink and copied them, throwing the tanard with all his strength. He had a split second to worry that all his strength wouldn't be enough to shatter an Asgardian tankard, but when it hit, it exploded into shrapnel. "Another!" he shouted in triumph, even as he wondered what the hell those things were made of.

He earned four broad grins for his efforts, followed by a fresh tankard from one of the serving maids.

"So it's okay for you to just tell really embarrassing stories about the crown prince when he's not around?" said Steve, thinking of how Thor had reacted when he had challenged Odin. "It's not...I don't know, treason or something?"

Volstagg laughed. "Don't be absurd, my good mortal. Thor would have told that tale himself if he'd been here, and he would have given far more details. If he is cross with us, it will only be because we told it without him."

"I suspect that growing up with the God of Mischief as his brother has rendered him entirely immune to the usual forms of embarrassment," said Fandral. "Dreadfully unfair, you know."

Steve chuckled. One prince who couldn't be embarrassed, and another who'd make anyone who tried to embarrass him regret it for months.

X

After lunch, the Warriors Three headed off together, leaving Steve with Sif. "Well," she said, "as Thor and Loki have yet to come and claim you, I would introduce you to my brother."

"Your brother?"

"Yes, Heimdall, Gatekeeper of Asgard."

"I guess I should thank him," said Steve. "He's the reason I'm not still frozen, right?"

"Yes. He has mentioned you to me more than once in the last couple of years. It grieved him when it appeared you had fallen in battle."

"He really does see everything, huh?"

"His sight is connected to every living soul within Yggdrasil. It is a heavy burden, but his willingness to shoulder it has been vital in allowing Asgard to do much good for other realms."

"Uh-huh," said Steve a little stiffly. Sif didn't seem to have noticed. He followed her down a cobblestone street to a long building adjoining an enclosed pasture where horses grazed.

"I'll be back in a moment," she said. He waited, watching the horses. They looked just like Earth horses, but then, the people here looked just like humans. He wondered how much more these animals were than met the eye.

Heimdall had sent Thor and Loki directly to the crash site of the Hydra plane, which Howard still hadn't found any trace of. He could see every living soul, and he could remember where he'd seen them last. If that was really true, and all signs indicated that it was, then Steve had a question for him.

Sif returned with two saddled mares in tow, one jet black, the other dappled gray. The latter trotted up beside him and halted in just the right position for him to mount, which he did.

"Why do you still ride horses when you have magic and all this advanced technology?" he said, adjusting his seat in the saddle. He hadn't ridden in quite a while.

"Do you no longer ride horses on Midgard?" said Sif, looking surprised.

"Not as much as when I was a kid. People still do, but mostly we use cars and trains now."

Sif looked thoughtful. "Well, Asgard is not large, so there is nowhere we could want to go that cannot be easily reached on horseback. Our horses are also stronger and faster than those of Midgard, so they compare favorably with automated transport in terms of speed. And, I suppose, we simply like them." She patted her own steed on the neck and smiled. Steve smiled too. The more time he spent around Sif, the more convinced he was that she and Peggy would become fast friends if they ever met. Maybe he could make that happen.

The horse he rode barely required any guidance from him. She seemed to know exactly where she was going already, and the scenery rushed past them far faster than he would've believed from the smoothness of her gait. And just when he thought he'd seen most of the wonders Asgard had to offer, they rode through a pair of enormous golden doors onto a bridge made of rainbow crystal. It sang beneath the horses' hooves, and when he turned, he saw a fading trail of shining hoofprints extending out behind them. Was he truly awake, and all of this real? He couldn't help letting out a laugh as the wind rushed past his face and he bent over the mare's neck to urge her on even faster.

The bridge carried them out over a churning sea, extending all the way to a golden sphere with a spire at the top, the whole thing covered in intricate designs. His breath caught in his chest when he realized that what looked like a broad waterfall on the horizon was actually the edge of the world.

Sif seemed to have realized what he was thinking, because she smiled at him. "You needn't fear," she called over the rushing wind and the sounds of hooves ringing against crystal. "We will be quite safe near the edge."

X

Heimdall watched his sister and Captain Rogers ride for the Observatory with a slight frown on his face. He would, of course, obey the commands of his king, and the outcome would only benefit all parties involved, but the level of subterfuge Odin had injected into it felt more than a little unnecessary.

"Good afternoon, Brother!" said Sif as she strode into the Observatory.

"You will spoil me with these frequent visits, Sister," he said, smiling.

"Captain Rogers, allow me to introduce Heimdall, the eldest child of my father, who has watched over the nine realms for a dozen centuries."

"It's an honor to meet you, sir," said Rogers. "I hear I have you to thank for not being in the ice anymore." He stuck out his hand as he had done for Thor the previous day.

Unlike the prince, Heimdall had witnessed this custom among Midgardians, so he reached to shake the extended hand rather than clasping his whole forearm. "I am glad not to be attending your funeral, Captain."

"Yeah, well, the report of my death was an exaggeration," said Rogers.

Heimdall chuckled. Sif looked confused at first, then rolled her eyes. "A joke from Midgard?"

"A quote from one of the more widely-known authors of his nation," said Heimdall.

"Wow," said Rogers. "You really do see everything."

"Every _one_. It is a significant distinction."

Rogers glanced at Sif, then back to Heimdall. "Does, uh, does that mean you'd be able to tell me where I can find my friend's body? Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. He fell into the Danube in Germany a few weeks ago. If you think I deserved a warrior's funeral, he deserves one just as much. I know he could've been carried along the river for miles, so even if you can tell me where he landed, it might not help me find him, but...it's better than nothing. At least I'll be able to tell his family I tried."

Heimdall raised a hand, pausing an inch from Rogers's forehead. "Would you like me to show you?"

Rogers swallowed, then nodded. Heimdall's palm connected with his skin, and he carefully projected his awareness of a single mortal man into his mind. He started with the fall that Rogers had surely replayed a thousand times already for himself. Barnes had landed in the river, his left arm striking a jagged rock just below the surface and tearing free of his body before he was swept away in the current.

Rogers was weeping as he watched this. Sif frowned at Heimdall. "Is this why you asked me to bring him to you? To show him his friend's demise?"

"Not his demise," said Heimdall.

Sif's eyes widened. "But—but you are bound not to interfere. How…?" Realization dawned on her face. "The Allfather has sanctioned this?"

"If Rogers asked about Barnes, I was free to show him."

* * *

Heimdall knows ALL your inside jokes.

I think my favorite bit from Steve in the whole chapter is him trying to tip his hat to Sif when he's not wearing a hat. He might be a muscly hunk now, but that doesn't mean he's gotten any better at talking to women. :D However, I made myself cry pretty hard writing about the wedding photo of Steve's parents, and Steve imagining what life would've been like if his dad had survived WWI. :(

I didn't think Steve would actually make this comparison in his head, but when I picture him sparring with Sif and the Warriors Three, I pretty much picture one scrawny little puppy wrestling with a giant, adolescent puppy, wherein the adolescent puppy is careful not to harm the scrawny puppy but they both have as much fun as possible. (To me, Asgardians as a whole seem like boisterous puppies, and then there's Loki, who has the personality of a cat.)

If you've been following my tumblr, you might have recognized a couple of my headcanons about Asgardian culture in this chapter, like the story about Loki not growing facial hair and the way tankards seem to be designed to shatter in satisfying ways.

I took a few liberties with the mythological wedding of Thrym story. I made Thrym a common hill giant on Vanaheim instead of a king of Jotunheim, because logistically that just wasn't going to work. And the exchanging weapons thing is a legit Viking wedding custom. I'm a little jealous, frankly.


	17. Hnefatafl Master

Steve's heart was racing, the image of a pale, sick, and one-armed but very much _alive_ Bucky still emblazoned across his vision even though Heimdall was no longer showing him anything. Joy, disbelief, and worry for Bucky's current condition warred within him. "Where are Thor and Loki right now?" he asked.

"Loki is in the palace library. Thor is at the training grounds," said Heimdall.

"Thanks," said Steve. "For everything."

"It was my honor," said Heimdall, inclining his head.

Steve ran back out to where the horses stood waiting and vaulted onto the gray's back.

"Heimdall told me a little of what he was showing you," said Sif, mounting her horse too. "Your shield-brother, the one you told us of last night—he still lives?"

"Yeah," said Steve, "but he's not doing so great." The mare seemed aware of the urgency he felt, because she accelerated to a full run with barely any encouragement from him. Sif's kept pace.

"Go to Thor," said Sif. "I will bring Loki to you."

Steve gave her a nod of appreciation. He'd only met her a day ago, and she was already willing to help him without question. Yeah, he definitely wanted her to meet Peggy.

On the other side of the gates at the end of the Rainbow Bridge, they split up, Steve veering right, down the same path they had come before, Sif continuing straight ahead. One thing was becoming clear as he neared the training grounds: Bucky was in a Soviet field hospital on the Eastern front, and even if that front was pushing farther westward every day, getting him back to the US could get very complicated.

...Unless Steve enlisted the help of a couple of magical Viking princes from outer space, that was. But he couldn't just ask them to do that. He was already deeply in Asgard's debt, whether or not he was okay with their prior inaction regarding the World Wars and the Tesseract. There was only one thing he could offer in exchange for their help.

X

Loki did not get much reading done in the library. Thinking to prepare to infiltrate the organization that had the Tesseract, he'd pulled down an armload of books about Midgardian culture and government, then noted with distaste that none of them had been written within the last century. That sort of thing didn't matter as much when the books were about realms where the people had lifespans similar to theirs, but it was a serious oversight in the case of Midgard. But even if they had been more up-to-date, Loki probably would've been too preoccupied to glean anything useful.

Father had a plan for Captain Rogers, that much was clear. He knew something the mortal did not—something that he believed would make him change his mind about helping them get the Tesseract. It was a game of Hnefatafl that Rogers didn't even know he was playing, and Loki suspected that Rogers's king was already trapped between two soldiers. Rogers might be honest, brave, and unshakable in his sense of right and wrong, but such men were predictable, and Odin was a master strategist who, between Heimdall and Hlidskjalf, was nigh-omniscient. Loki was extremely curious as to the nature of the leverage he had over Rogers.

He didn't have to wait long to discover it. No sooner had he made a second attempt to focus on the books than Sif came striding up to his alcove. He raised an eyebrow. "To what do I owe this honor?" he asked.

"Captain Rogers would speak with you and Thor on an urgent matter."

"Oh, has Father's trap closed around him so soon, then?"

Sif frowned. "Trap? What do you mean?"

"This morning, our valiant mortal opted not to help us recover the Tesseract. Father seemed fairly confident this would prove a temporary setback, though he wouldn't say why."

Sif's posture became rather rigid, and Loki wondered if he had just confirmed her own suspicions. "I don't know whether you caught any of the captain's tales of his battles and adventures with his shield-brothers while you were entertaining Volstagg's children yesterday, but he just learned from Heimdall that his dearest friend, Sergeant Barnes, still lives."

"What happy news," said Loki. No wonder Odin had been confident of his victory. He unfolded himself from his seat in the alcove and hopped down. "Lead the way."

She set a brisk pace, not speaking. Loki knew she was troubled by the situation, and he wasn't about to distract her from that with conversation.

As expected, by the time they made it out of the palace, Sif could no longer contain herself. "Why would the Allfather not simply tell Rogers of his friend's survival?" she burst out. "Why let him find his way to Heimdall and learn of it seemingly by happenstance?"

"My father has been playing games of strategy for millennia," said Loki. "I suspect he sometimes does it just to amuse himself even when a straightforward approach is available."

"Why didn't Rogers want to help with the Tesseract?"

"It is currently in the possession of the good captain's allies, after spending years in the hands of his enemies, who did their best to wreak havoc with it."

"Then why did the order to retrieve it not come sooner?"

"Perhaps Father saw it as a good opportunity to observe how well the mortals are able to counter otherworldly threats." He glanced at her sideways. "Does that trouble you?"

"It is not my place to challenge the decisions of my king, but...it seems a rather cold way to deal with a realm under Asgard's protection. I do not believe it is what Thor would do in that position."

Loki was reminded of Thor's angry defense of Odin, as well as his ready vow to help Loki avenge the queen of a race he had spent all his life casually despising. "No, it is not. Waiting to see if his allies truly need his help before leaping to their aid would drive him mad, and even if it occurred to him to attempt manipulation, he'd be dreadful at it. He's so terribly genuine."

Sif smirked. "Wrinkle your nose all you like, but deep down, I think you admire him for that."

"I could hardly admit to such a thing if it were true," said Loki.

"Yes, it would be simply awful if word got out that you love your brother," said Sif with a sweet smile and an elbow to his ribs.

"Are you _trying_ to ruin the reputation I have so carefully cultivated?"

Surprisingly, she let out a full laugh. That sort of remark usually got him a lecture from her. Sif had perplexed him over the last couple of days. She'd been a constant fixture in his life almost as long as he could remember, like a younger sister. In fact, he'd been convinced for centuries that she would eventually make it official by becoming his sister-in-law, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to tolerate anyone else Thor chose. Loki and Sif irritated each other almost as often as Loki and Thor did, but there was also an unspoken understanding between them—the two members of the group who refused to slot neatly into Asgard's prescribed categories. But in all of this, one thing she rarely was to him was _nice_. Until now, it seemed. It was unsettling.

"You'll find Thor and Captain Rogers at the training grounds," she said when they reached the palace doors. "Shall I tell Eir to prepare for the arrival of another mortal in need of her skills?"

"Don't you want to come along?" said Loki.

"I will certainly accompany you if I am needed, but as I bear a quarter of the blame for stealing Thor away to Muspelheim without you, I would not want to intrude so soon without good reason."

She smiled again and put fist to heart, and he barely had time to return the salute before she was heading off in the direction of the healing room. He stared dumbly after her. Yes, Thor did seem rather keen to spend plenty of time with him in an effort to prove that his parentage made them no less brothers, but since when did Sif pass up an opportunity to be at Thor's side for _his_ sake?

X

When Steve reached the training grounds, most of the gold-armored soldiers were gone, and Thor was beating up simulations that put the ones even Sif and the Warriors Three had fought that morning to shame. He looked around at Steve's approach. His brow furrowed and jaw clenched briefly. He punched his current opponent so hard it exploded into sparks of light. "Captain Rogers," he said.

"Thor," said Steve.

There was an awkward moment as the things they had said in the war room hung in the air between them like one of the simulated creatures. Steve was trying to figure out how to move forward when Thor beat him to it. "I...regret how I reacted when you challenged my father's decisions," he said gruffly. "Asgard has scarcely interacted with Midgard for my entire life; of course we are unfamiliar with one another's customs."

"Yeah, well. I guess I have a habit of rubbing authority figures the wrong way," said Steve. This got a small chuckle out of Thor.

"On the contrary. After you left, my father praised you for your courage. He told Loki and me that we could learn much from one such as you. Your willingness to stand up to someone more powerful than you when you believe they are wrong is admirable."

"Just because someone's stronger doesn't make them right," said Steve. "It only makes it easier for them to think they are."

Thor grimaced. "I wonder how often I have made that mistake."

This conciliatory attitude made it much easier for Steve to say what he'd come here to say. "What are Asgard's plans for the Tesseract?"

"We will return it to the Vault until Father determines a more suitable hiding place for it," said Thor. "One where it cannot be used to further the goals of a tyrannical regime. Why?"

Thor struck Steve as a very forthright and honest man. Maybe a little hot-headed when provoked, but trustworthy. "I've seen the damage it can do. If I'm going to help you get it back from my own people, I need to know it'll be in good hands."

Thor nodded once. "You have my word. The Tesseract is Asgard's responsibility. Perhaps you were not wrong in what you said to my father, but it is not a mistake that will be repeated." He looked at Steve curiously. "What prompted your change of mind?"

"Bucky's alive."

Thor's eyebrows shot up. "The companion you spoke of in the feast hall? The one who was as dear as a brother?"

"Yeah," said Steve. He wanted Thor to really understand exactly how important this was to him. "What would you do if you watched Loki fall to his death because you couldn't get to him in time, and then you found out he was still alive, but badly injured and sick, in the care of strangers?"

Steve thought he saw something crackle behind Thor's eyes. "I would do whatever it took to bring him back to safety."

"Then you know what I have to do now. You've already done a lot for me, and I can't thank you enough for that, but help me get Bucky back, and I'll help you get the Tesseract."

"Must it be a trade?" said Thor. "That is far too formal. We are friends, are we not? Friends aid one other in times of need. There is no debt to be settled."

Steve couldn't help smiling. "Yeah, we're friends."

"Excellent!" Steve gave a yelp and looked around. Loki had materialized out of nowhere right next to them.

"Was that necessary!?" he said, while Thor laughed.

"Yes," said Loki. He rubbed his hands together, a gleam in his eye. "To Midgard, then?"

X

As they rode their horses down the Rainbow Bridge, Loki had to marvel again at Odin's masterful manipulation. Now both Thor and Rogers were convinced that they'd come to this conclusion on their own, they were on very good terms, and they were both keen to help each other. He remembered something Odin had said once after a long day of hearing supplicants. "Know your own weaknesses as well as you know your opponent's. Know what you want from him and what it is worth to you. Persuade where you can and use force where you must, but the most lasting victory comes when you leave him believing that your own goals were his idea all along."

Odin had just gained at least one renowned and respected mortal warrior as an ally of Asgard, smoothed the path to reclaiming the Tesseract, and extended the time before Loki could do anything about Jotunheim, all in one stroke. It had been a while since Loki had last played his father at Hnefatafl, but he was starting to feel that it was a pastime he ought to revive.

* * *

Hnefatafl is also known as Viking Chess. Instead of having two equal forces facing off on the board, you start out with a king surrounded by his small army in the center of the board, with lines of the opposing soldiers along each edge. The defending player wins by getting the king to one of the corners, while the attacking player wins by surrounding the king on multiple sides. The pieces only move in straight lines, like a chess rook. I researched the game for this chapter, and now I want to try it out with my former chess club brother.

Sif continues her efforts to be a better friend to Loki, but the other important thing she took away from her conversation with Thor about him a few chapters ago is that Thor needs more quality time with his brother, so even though she's in love with him, she's trying not to monopolize him at Loki's expense. I really like the idea that Sif and Loki have a more sibling-like rapport than friendship (and I especially like it better than the idea that Sif merely tolerates Loki as Thor's tag-along). It seems like the sort of thing that would happen if you spend that many centuries hanging out. They're just very used to each other, and even if they barely get along, they can't imagine the other person not being around.

I think benevolent manipulation is a trait Odin and Dumbledore have in common. Especially the part where sometimes it backfires horribly (but it worked out pretty well here).

I fully believe that, when Thor is in a good mood, he makes friends as easily as a little kid on a playground. Do you remember how that was? How you could just walk up to another kid and be like "Hi! I'm [name]. Wanna be friends?" and that was all there was to it? Yeah, that's Thor.


	18. All the Realm's a Stage

When Steve was a kid, he'd read everything by Jules Verne he could get his hands on. He'd never really had a head for complicated science, but he'd filled numerous sketchbooks with drawings of the Nautilus, giant subterranean creatures, and projectiles that could send a man from Earth to the moon. He and Bucky had even built a model of that projectile out of old cardboard boxes once, when they were eight or nine.

Since then, he hadn't really put much thought into what space travel would be like, but he was very sure that he hadn't pictured it as a brilliant tunnel of jewel-bright colors that was the only barrier between him and rushing stars that looked almost close enough to touch. Less than a minute after being swept into the Bifrost from the Observatory alongside the princes, Steve could see the Earth rushing towards him at an alarming speed. If they carried on like this, they were going to smash head-first into it. He glanced at Thor and Loki for an indication of what to do, but they were still staring at the oncoming planet. And then, without any effort on their part, they all simply landed on their feet.

Steve had been bracing himself so hard that he nearly fell over. He looked around. They were standing in a Celtic knot-looking circular pattern freshly burned into the ground in a clearing in the woods, and based on the position of the sun, it was about noon. He pulled out his compass to get his bearings. "This way," he said, and Thor and Loki followed him.

It took them about an hour and a half to reach their destination: a small Hungarian town near the Austrian border, which had been converted into a Red Army outpost in preparation for pushing closer to Germany. Bucky was being treated in a field hospital that had once been a school, and luckily it wasn't far from the woods. However, they couldn't simply stroll into the town as they were. The US might be allied with the Soviets, but even though he was back in his uniform (which had been cleaned and mended at some point in the last two days so that it looked good as new), Steve had never been to the Eastern Front and would have a hard time proving he had a good reason to be there, and the Odinsons would cause an uproar just by walking around in their Asgardian armor.

"Is that what we should look like?" said Loki. Steve looked where he was pointing. A pair of grim-faced Soviet soldiers were walking up the street. Hungarian civilians shot them nervous glances, huddled more closely together, and walked faster as they went about their work and errands.

"Yeah," said Steve.

Loki made a face like he was concentrating hard, then waved his hand over Steve and Thor. In a flash of green-gold light, Steve's Captain America uniform turned into padded khaki Red Army fatigues. So did Thor's armor, and Mjolnir became a rifle. Another flash of light, and Loki stood before them in matching fatigues. He had a tufty brown mustache, and his hair, also brown, was now much shorter and styled the same way as the two soldiers'. He looked at Thor and grinned, which made the ends of his mustache move up at least an inch. "I don't think I've seen the lower half of your face in two hundred years, Brother. You look ridiculous."

"I _feel_ ridiculous," Thor grumbled, running one large hand through his own short hair, then lingering over his clean-shaven chin and upper lip. "Can you at least give me back my mustache if you're going to be walking around like that?"

"We can't all look the same. I'm meant to be an officer. You two are lowly foot-soldiers, so remember that you're to leave all the talking to me."

Thor made a face somewhere between a grimace and a pout—an expression that, combined with the absence of his facial hair, made him look like a very oversized schoolboy—, but raised no further objections.

Steve had the impression that Loki was having far too much fun with all of this, but as long as it didn't stop them from retrieving Bucky, he wouldn't complain. "Okay, the hospital's just at the end of this street," he said. "You go in, convince the medical officer in charge that we have transfer orders to deliver Bucky back to the Western Front, give us the signal, and then we'll go in and get him."

"Right," said Loki. "I'll be back shortly, then."

Steve tried to exchange an uncertain glance with Thor, but Thor was too busy turning the disguised Mjolnir over and over in his hands to notice. He watched Loki stroll up the street to the hospital and disappear inside. "Are you sure he can pull off a convincing Soviet officer? Didn't you guys say you hadn't been to Earth in centuries?"

"Oh, don't worry," said Thor. "I'm sure Loki's read every book in the palace library on Midgard, and he's quite clever. He should be able to fool them."

"And you're sure that he'll sound like he's speaking Russian to them?"

"Of course," said Thor. "Allspeak works on any structured language, and Loki didn't earn the name Silvertongue for nothing."

No sooner had these words left his mouth than there was a sudden commotion from the direction of the hospital. They both spun to face it. People seemed to be running out of it, screaming in Russian and Hungarian. A few seconds later, Loki appeared right beside his two companions, making Steve jump and Thor frown.

"What the hell just happened?" said Steve.

"I don't know!" said Loki. "The matron in there didn't like my military credentials, and when I tried to back them up by saying I was from a prestigious family, she yelled for the soldiers at the doors. What is wrong with this culture? Have these people no respect for their social betters?"

"...Are you serious?" said Steve.

"What?" said Loki. "I've read all about Imperial Russia. It's the largest Midgardian empire controlled by a single monarch since the reign of Möngke Khan, and as such has quite an entrenched aristocracy."

"Uh...how recent are your sources?" said Steve.

"About a century," said Loki. "A touch out of date, to be sure, but still useful."

Steve shot him a flat look. "You know, this would be a lot funnier if it didn't just make our job here twice as hard. Maybe Thor should do the talking if your magic language is going to make you sound like royalty to a bunch of communist soldiers."

"Don't be absurd," said Loki. "This hasn't gotten harder for us; merely more surreal for them."

"Why, what did you do?" said Steve, glancing at the hospital, where the screaming and general panic had still not subsided.

"Oh nothing too elaborate. I simply made it appear as though the main corridor is severely haunted. That should keep them occupied long enough for us to make it to Sergeant Barnes's room and back out." His annoyed expression had given way to one of amused satisfaction.

Steve ran a hand over his face and took a slow, calming breath. He was unable to suppress a suspicion that Loki had done all of this on purpose, just to make things more interesting. "Fine. Let's go."

Thor frowned as they stepped into the open and headed back up the street. "Do I not sound the same as Loki?" he said.

"Well I don't know about in Russian," said Steve, "but to me, you sound like a normal guy from somewhere in England. _He_ definitely sounds like an aristocrat."

X

Loki had left the hospital in such a state of chaos—with bloody, howling phantoms that looked like dead soldiers staggering up and down the main ward and the lights flickering eerily—that the three of them had no trouble walking past and locating the classroom-turned-infirmary where Bucky was being treated alongside at least a dozen Russian soldiers.

Steve had seen through Heimdall's sight that Bucky was in the cot closest to the window, but actually seeing him in person was another matter. He felt like their old positions had been reversed when he reached the cot. Steve had always been the pale, sickly one. Now, Bucky looked terrible. Even aside from the fact that his left arm ended in a heavily-bandaged stump just below the shoulder, his skin was pale and sweaty, his eyes sunken. But still, he was _alive_ , and this was real. The last shreds of Steve's fear, doubt, and grief melted away as he placed a hand on Bucky's warm right shoulder.

"Buck, hey," said Steve. He glanced at the soldiers in the other cots. Most were asleep, and the few who weren't didn't seem interested in the newcomers.

Bucky's eyelids fluttered, and he looked blearily up at Steve. "Hey, pal. Good to see you," he mumbled.

"Good to see me?" said Steve, a lump rising in his throat. He pulled Bucky into a tight hug. "I'm not the one who was pronounced killed in action." Not as far as he knew, anyway.

Bucky pulled away after a few seconds and frowned at Steve's clothes. "What're you doing in a Red Army uniform? ...And in Hungary?"

"Long story," said Steve, hastily dragging the back of his hand over his cheeks and smiling. "We're getting you out of here." He indicated Thor and Loki, who were standing near the door.

"Okay, but I think I left my arm in the river."

Steve winced. Bucky seemed too delirious to notice. "Don't worry about it. Can you walk?"

"Not very far." That much was obvious. It was a struggle for Bucky to sit up, let alone walk, and the attempt brought on a nasty coughing fit, but Steve slung his friend's arm across his shoulders and did most of the work for him. "Who're your friends?" Bucky asked when they got to the door. "New Commandos?"

"Not exactly," said Steve.

"Well met, Sergeant Barnes!" said Thor brightly. "I am Thor, son of Odin, and this is my brother Loki."

"Yes, yes, well met," said Loki. "We must go."

And so they did. Back down the corridor full of shambling illusions, which they walked through as if they were nothing while Bucky stared, mouth hanging open. Back out into the street, where the terrified soldiers and medical officers had yet to regain any semblance of order. Back into the woods, where, once they were out of sight of the town, Steve helped Bucky down onto a large, protruding tree root.

"That went well, didn't it?" said Loki with satisfaction.

"Are those ghost things still running around in there?" said Steve.

"They'll fade away after an hour or so," said Loki. He flicked his hand, and his, Thor's, and Steve's disguises all vanished. Thor promptly tossed the restored Mjolnir up and caught it.

"What the hell is going on?" said Bucky, staring at the hammer. "'M I hallucinating again?"

"Nope," said Steve, who was having a hard time suppressing his grin. He hadn't felt this light and happy in...he didn't even know how long. Bucky was here! He was going to be okay! "But you might be asking me that a lot over the next couple of days."

"Here," said Loki, procuring from thin air a glass phial full of translucent rust-colored liquid that appeared to be glowing. "Drink this. I'm not certain it will cure your particular ailment, but it should give you sufficient energy to reach the Bifrost site unassisted."

Bucky glanced at Steve, who glanced at Thor. "That's really what it does? It won't turn him into some kind of animal?"

Loki scoffed. "As if I require potions for that."

"No," said Thor, "that is a restorative elixir made from Idunn's apples. Our warriors drink it when wounded in battle."

Bucky held out his hand, and Loki dropped the phial into it. Then he frowned at the stopper. "Oh, right," he muttered. Realizing the problem, Steve made to remove the stopper for him, but Loki was faster.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said, and the stopper flew out of the phial with another flick of his finger.

"Uh. Thanks," said Bucky. His eyes were a bit glazed, and Steve was prepared to bet that he'd convinced himself this was all a fever dream brought on by his pneumonia. He tossed back the glowing elixir like it was a shot of whiskey. Healthy color returned to his skin so quickly it was alarming, and he bolted to his feet. "Wow," he said. "Okay, so I guess I wasn't dreaming. That's some strong cider. Who are you guys again? You sound English, but I know I've never had a drink like that in an English pub, and you both look like you fell out of a book about King Arthur or Vikings or something. Plus all the..." He made a vague gesture towards Loki. "Magic."

"As I said, we are Thor and Loki Odinson," said Thor. "Princes of Asgard."

"I went down in Hydra's plane a few days ago, after taking out their last base," said Steve. "I stopped Schmidt, but I ended up buried in ice. These guys found me and got me out. They've got people who can patch you up, and then they'll take us home."

"Holy shit," said Bucky. "Lucky us, huh?"

"Yeah," said Steve as Thor began leading the way back towards the Bifrost site. "Well, apparently there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, Buck."

Loki wheeled about to face them, now walking backwards, easily stepping over obstacles like roots and stones without looking at them. "You know of the Bard?" he said, looking delighted. "Are you scholars of his work?"

Steve and Bucky stared at him. "It's not like we had a choice," said Bucky. "They make us read a bunch of his plays in school."

"Yeah, he's the most famous playwright in all of English canon," said Steve. "How do _you_ know about him?"

"Know about him?" said Thor with a hearty laugh, talking over his shoulder, not breaking stride. "Loki was one of his actors for a while. Father wasn't too happy about it. He thought it too common."

"He never did have good taste in theatre," said Loki with a roll of his eyes. "But even though he wouldn't sponsor them at on the royal stage, _Hamlet_ , _Macbeth_ , and _Titus Andronicus_ lasted decades on some of the public stages around Asgard. I preferred _King Lear_ , _Much Ado about Nothing_ , and _Twelfth Night_ , but they never caught on the same way."

"The Warriors Three and I watched a few of Loki's performances on Midgard," said Thor. "They could never be as good as Asgardian productions without the magic, but they were diverting."

"Wasn't Volstagg the inspiration for Falstaff?" said Loki.

"Yes," said Thor, "but Volstagg isn't the one who gave his understudy the head of an ass, _Mr. Goodfellow_."

Loki grinned rather wickedly as he turned back around.

Steve and Bucky exchanged bewildered glances. "Now you know what my last few days have been like," said Steve. "Just wait until we get to Asgard. You're not gonna believe your eyes."

* * *

I didn't mean for this chapter to take so long, but I got very hung up on trying to make the setting historically accurate. I watched documentaries about the Eastern Front and tried to find information on field hospitals and medical officers in the Red Army near the end of the war. What did not help was that the people who made the movie didn't seem to understand maps. The river Bucky fell into is supposedly the Danube, and yet the Danube does not run through the Alps, which is definitely where they were when they attacked the Hydra train. Many of its tributaries are in the Alps, but nowhere near where Bucky would've needed to be in order to be found by Soviet soldiers. Exactly how far are we supposed to believe he got carried by the river? Because two whole countries is a bit excessive. *facepalm* So I did the best I could.

Moving on to the more fun stuff. I've been playing with the implications of Allspeak across my Thor fics, and I have a headcanon that when you hear someone speaking Allspeak, you hear an accent that corresponds to their education level and class. Which accounts for the differences in Thor, Loki, and Odin's accents. Oldschool king accent sounds different than careless warrior prince or voracious scholar prince. And the voracious scholar prince is not going to sound like an ordinary Soviet citizen in Russian. Whoops! (I just have this mental image of Loki saying "Do you *know* who I *am*?" in the poshest voice ever to a thoroughly unimpressed medical officer, and then legging it out of there while everyone screams about the ghost illusions.)

That elixir Loki gave Bucky is not going to make Bucky immortal. While we have seen golden apples in canon, nobody has talked about them. It makes more sense to me that the Aesir's longevity is just part of their biology, but the apples probably have *some* degree of restorative power to have inspired those myths.

The Shakespeare stuff was pretty much just a tribute to how much Tom Hiddleston loves Shakespeare and how heavy the Shakespearean influence is on the first Thor film. As someone who wrote her master's thesis on Lady Macbeth, how could I resist? Also, in the comics, Volstagg was actually inspired by Falstaff. He isn't from Norse mythology. I thought it'd be fun to reverse that in the fic, and make him Shakespeare's inspiration for his character.

Oh, and Loki's disguise mustache is based on that one picture of Tom making a face at the camera while wearing an absolutely absurd mustache. It's seriously one of my favorite pictures ever. :D

Anyway, Bucky is rescued! Huzzah!


	19. Machina ex Deus

"Well, it looks like this will all be fairly straight-forward," said Eir crisply.

"Uh, it will, ma'am?" said Bucky, casting a nervous glance at Steve. That glowy drink Loki gave him might've cleared his head, but just because he no longer believed he was hallucinating due to fever didn't mean he hadn't gone insane. Shellshock could do that to a man, and who had better cause for shellshock than a former Nazi labrat who lost an arm and nearly drowned in a freezing river? Maybe he was really strapped to a cot somewhere in Germany, yammering incoherently about Norse gods and a golden city amid the stars and while a bunch of Hydra scientists scribbled notes on clipboards. Maybe this woman with her braided hair and her floor-length medieval-looking gown who had waved her hands over him and turned sections of his flesh see-through was a figment of his imagination, or some kind of actress.

"Certainly," she said. "I've treated far worse than this. I can prepare a tonic for the respiratory inflammation easily, and I still have some of the potion I used on the Captain's broken bones. As for the arm, I'll have your measurements sent to the medical smithy at once, and we should have it ready for fitting and neural attunement within two days. Of course, it might need an enchantment to counteract the weight, otherwise you'll likely topple over whenever you move it. You mortals are so lightly formed, you hardly seem solid."

"You're...you're gonna make me a new arm? One I'll actually be able to use as an arm?" said Bucky, startled out of his attempts to figure out what the Nazis could possibly be getting out of all of this. He looked at Steve again, and then they both stared at Thor and Loki, who were standing nonchalantly behind Eir.

Eir frowned. "You have some objection?"

"No! God, no," said Bucky. "It's just…"

"Not something we thought was possible," Steve finished for him. "The kind of prosthetic limbs we're used to aren't exactly functional."

"Ah, of course," said Eir. "Midgardian technology has not yet reached that point. I hadn't realized… Is that going to be a problem?"

"You mean by drawing all kinds of attention?" said Steve.

"I can hide it under sleeves and gloves if I have to," said Bucky quickly. On the slim chance that this was real, he didn't want to blow his shot at getting a new arm just because it might be tough to explain to the folks back home.

"Oh, I don't think that will be necessary," said Loki. "Unless a spell to make it look like an ordinary arm would interfere with the spell to modulate its weight."

"I don't see why it should," said Eir. "The latter would affect the volume while the former would only affect the surface, correct?"

"True. If you have those measurements ready, I'll pay Volund a visit right now and work something out." He turned to face Bucky. "The arm won't be dwarf-made, but Volund has crafted many an excellent limb for Asgard's wounded warriors, and with my assistance on the enchantments, you'll hardly know the difference between it and your own flesh."

He left a moment later with parchment in hand and a spring in his step.

"He seems chipper," said Steve.

"Loki loves a puzzle, particularly when it involves magic," said Thor fondly.

"He kinda reminds me of Stark, except for the part about magic," said Bucky.

Steve's eyes widened and he stood a little straighter. "I think I just figured out how to get the Tesseract."

X

Steve's idea required Bucky's new arm to be in place and for him to have had some practice using it, which meant they would both be spending a total of three more days on Asgard. With assurances from Heimdall that the war continued to shift in the Allies' favor, three days were not a price they were unwilling to pay. That meant they would return to Earth on Saturday, which was what Steve had been hoping for.

Eir had Bucky healed enough after an hour that he didn't have to stay in the healing room, so he joined Steve, Thor, Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three for a very hearty meal, the majority of which he spent besieged from all sides with requests for stories of battle. When everyone started hurling their tankards at the ground with cries of "Another!" at the end of a story, Bucky joined in after an encouraging nod from Steve.

After the food came music and dancing, and none of the Aesir in their party showed any signs of wanting to cut their evening short early. Bucky, who had been expecting to be entirely overlooked while in the company of not just Steve but an entire hall full of actual Norse gods, was startled when a crowd of Aesir girls descended upon him as the lutes, harps, and drums started up. Word had apparently traveled about the royal family's mortal guests.

It took three dances before he was able to break away. His partners hadn't seemed to mind at all that he spent the entire song stumbling around the dance circle like an idiot, his jazz and swing skills completely useless in this setting, and attempts to get free were thwarted by the girls' alarming strength.

"I see you've managed to escape," said Loki when a red-faced Bucky stumbled to a table laden with many golden cups of wine.

Bucky ducked behind him to avoid being spotted by the fiery-haired lass he'd just escaped. He noticed that there were a couple of girls trying to get Steve's attention a few yards away, and he was handling that about as awkwardly as he always did, but it was nothing like what Bucky had been dealing with. "Why are they after me?" he said.

A bellowing laugh greeted his question, and Volstagg slapped him on the back with the hand not occupied by his wine, nearly sending him crashing to the floor. "Why, my good man, you have lost a limb in battle! There are few finer marks of valor and bravery a man can acquire."

"Indeed," agreed Sif, though her brow was furrowed in irritation. "And few on Asgard have earned that distinction in a century or two, which raises its value even more."

"Yes, which is why it's a good thing he'll only be here three days," said Fandral, who had gone partnerless for two dances in a row now. Hogun snorted into his wine beside him.

"They forget that Sergeant Barnes is a mortal and needs more time to recover from his wounds," said Sif. She glared fiercely at the redhead, who had spotted Bucky again and had been attempting a second assault. On meeting Sif's eye, however, she went a little pale and swerved to go in another direction instead. "Come, Sergeant, I will protect you from the wild mob." And, oblivious to Thor, who had been coming up behind her with an odd, determined expression on his face, she seized Bucky by the wrist and dragged him back to the dance floor, past Steve and Loki, both of whom were doubled up with laughter.

X

By the next morning, Bucky was finally convinced that this was not all the product of either shellshock or further experimentation by Hydra. He'd had hangovers before, but right now he felt like he'd been hit on the head by Thor's hammer, and the throbbing pain didn't change anything about the incredible surroundings.

Thursday and Friday were almost as strange as Wednesday had been, but everyone was so welcoming and enthusiastic that it was easy to just go along with it all and relax. Friday morning he spent at Volund's smithy, getting fitted for his new arm. Volund was a big, broad-shouldered man with gray-streaked black hair and beard, who could talk for hours straight about prosthetic arms and legs he'd built for Aesir men and women over the last millennium and a half. His accent sounded so thickly Scottish that he would have been difficult to understand even if he hadn't been talking about magic and technology that went way over Bucky's head.

That afternoon, Bucky and Steve were shown around to a few of Asgard's most spectacular sights by the Warriors Three, including the Hall of Kings, which was populated by gold statues of Thor and Loki's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, among others, each as large as the Statue of Liberty. Along the way, Steve filled Bucky in on what he had missed since falling into the river. Learning that it was an Asgardian who had killed Schmidt was enough to help him overcome any remaining misgivings he had about the place. He couldn't decide if he was relieved or disappointed, though, when they ate dinner that night in a hall too small for dancing.

On Friday morning, Bucky mostly watched but didn't participate as Steve sparred with the princes and their friends. Somehow, the sight made him nostalgic for all the scrapes the two of them had gotten into growing up in Brooklyn, even though none of the other boys had ever used magic to duplicate himself or fought with a mace that had retractable spikes.

Friday evening arrived, and with it, Volund and the completed arm. It was exactly the right size and looked like it was made out of molten gold, except for the runic markings all over it, which appeared to change as he watched. But Bucky's excitement was somewhat dampened when Volund and Eir explained how the next step in the process was going to go.

"In order for you to be able to use this like an arm, I will have to connect each of your nerve endings to the corresponding nodes," said Eir.

"Aye, it isnae a simple matter o' screwin' the airm tae yer shooder," said Volund. "It ah'll be the pain of losing the limb again, or waur. Mony an Aesir in his prime has fainted deid awa faet aa afore it wis owergyan."

Bucky and Steve both stared blankly at the blacksmith.

"Forgive his Allspeak," said Loki, "he never had much cause to become fully fluent in it. I imagine it's coming out as some particularly difficult dialect to your ear as a result."

"You could say that," said Steve.

"He said attaching the arm is going to hurt as badly as losing your own did in the first place," said Loki. "Possibly worse."

"Oh," said Bucky eloquently.

"Aye, yon es fit ah said," Volund grumbled.

"You up for this, Buck?" said Steve.

Bucky gritted his teeth. Of course there was a catch. Having now seen what an Aesir in his prime was capable of, he was not looking forward to the kind of pain that could knock one out. He focused on the strange, lopsided absence where his arm should be. He thought of all the things that were awkward or impossible to do one-handed, and he imagined spending the rest of his life that way. "Do it."

The process took five hours. They felt more like days. Bucky screamed himself hoarse and passed out twice, only to be woken up by another jolt of the same agony that had overloaded his brain before. About halfway through, feeling surged up from the arm itself, which started twitching and flailing in response to the pain. Thor solved this problem by pinning it down with Mjolnir, and Eir and Volund were able to continue their work. Meanwhile, Bucky's right hand was leaving finger-shaped bruises on Steve's forearm, not that Steve complained.

The most helpful thing for Bucky was the way Eir kept explaining what she was doing as she did it, talking in her calm voice about his suprascapular nerve, his axillary nerve, and his lateral pectoral nerve, their branches, the musculocutaneous and subscapular nerves, and the smaller, more anterior nerves throughout his shoulder. She explained what each nerve did and was able to predict what the arm would do once she attached it. It was definitely the most interesting anatomy lesson he'd ever had, and it was probably seared into his memory by all the pain that came along with it.

At long, long last, she and Volund backed away, their work done. Plenty of aches and twinges lingered, but that was a walk in the park compared to the actual neural attunement process. Across the room, Thor lifted his hand, making Mjolnir zoom over to him, freeing Bucky to begin experimentally moving his new arm. It didn't really feel like his own arm had. It was almost like he could taste the metal it was made of, except that the sensation was at his shoulder, not on his tongue. He could also feel the machinery at work in place of muscle, tendon, and bone. They generated the same movements, but there was something noticeably more mechanical about it all.

Eir left him alone to flex the fingers for about a minute before stepping forward again. She made him close his eyes while she prodded various parts of the arm and bent and stretched it, all while asking him questions about what she was doing. He was able to answer every question correctly.

"And how's the weight?" she asked, drawing back. "Does it feel about the same as your right arm?"

Bucky stretched them both out straight. "Yes, ma'am, I think so."

"Then that all seems to be in order," she said with a hint of a smile. "Excellent work, Volund, as always."

"Thank ye, ma lady," said Volund.

"And now for your part, Prince Loki," said Eir. Loki stepped forward, but she caught him hard across the chest before he could get within a few feet of Bucky. "I would remind you before you begin that you are still inside my healing room, and I will tolerate _no_ spell, transmutative, transfigurative, illusory, evocative, or otherwise, except for one that gives the arm the ordinary appearance we discussed."

"I beg your pardon," said Loki. "I have offered this man my services so that his new arm will not attract undue attention from the other mortals, and that is precisely what I will do." Nobody seemed to find his lofty, offended tone very convincing, including Bucky, who had by now heard several stories about the kinds of pranks Loki liked to pull on unsuspecting people. However, he made no objection when Loki took the seat Eir had vacated next to him and started drawing symbols on his shoulder with a finger that glowed brightly with greenish-gold light.

After a few seconds, the metal shimmered like it was under a heat haze, and then the gleaming surface was replaced with perfectly normal-looking skin, complete with arm hair, a few random freckles, and goosebumps from Loki's surprisingly cold fingers. The only exceptions were the vivid lines of what looked like green ink woven around his bicep, forming a Celtic-style snake that was biting its own tail.

"If you ever need to reveal Volund's work, all you have to do is knock its tail loose with your finger."

When nobody except Steve showed any sign of confusion at this, Bucky frowned and brought his right forefinger up to brush against the snake's head. To his astonishment, the tail shifted aside, falling free of the two-dimensional fanged jaws. The second it did, the arm shimmered and resumed its true appearance, though the tattoo remained.

"Now put it back," said Loki.

Bucky nudged the tail back towards the snake's mouth, and the arm looked like skin again. "That's amazing!"

"It'll only happen when you do it, so you won't have to worry about it shifting by mistake."

Somehow, the reality that he once again had two working arms hadn't really hit him yet, but now it all came crashing down at once. He was _whole_ again. His vision blurred. "How am I ever supposed to thank you? Any of you?" he said, voice hoarse.

"Ye ah'll thank me bi putting yon airm tae braw eese," said Volund cheerfully.

"Indeed," said Eir. "Perhaps you will have a chance to use it to help your people win their war."

"I could always turn the arm itself into a snake, if that would help you process your gratitude," said Loki, grinning. Thor, Eir, Volund, and Steve all protested loudly, but Bucky was too overwhelmed to do anything but laugh.

* * *

I did not expect to crank out another chapter of this one so quickly, but then I came up with the title. It is easily my favorite chapter title I have ever come up with, in any fandom. Latin puns are best puns. Once I knew the title, it was extremely easy to write the chapter to go with it. PLEASE APPRECIATE THE AMAZING TITLE. IT IS HILARIOUS AND PERFECT. *cough* Thank you.

Volund is my version of Weyland the Smith, the only blacksmith from Norse legend who isn't a dwarf. He might actually have been a real human person, but in this, I just made him an Aesir civilian who makes prosthetic limbs. I don't know much about how Asgardian prosthetic limbs work in comics canon, I just know that Thor himself lost an arm at some point in the last few years and has a new one made out of what looks like gold. The whole "neural attunement" idea is pretty much borrowed from automail in Fullmetal Alchemist. If Bucky's going to get a functional arm capable of sensation for free, there has to be a down side. That seemed like a good one.

Who remembers the significance of Saturday for Steve? Any guesses on what his idea was?


	20. The Stork Club

Standing before the mirror in his chamber, Steve couldn't find a single flaw in the military dress uniform the palace seamstresses had made for him based on his sketches. It was perfect, right down to the decorations and rank insignias. The only difference was the material, which he couldn't identify but which was more comfortable than anything from Earth he'd ever worn. His hands shook slightly as he tied his tie. He didn't know why he was so nervous. Maybe it was just that so many things had been going right lately—mostly in ways he had never dreamed possible—that he felt like his good fortune was gonna have to run dry soon. He'd beat Hydra. He'd survived. Bucky was alive and had a brand new arm. And now they were going home, and he was finally going to dance with his best girl.

"Geez, with how nervous you look, you'd think we were on the way to your wedding," said Bucky, who was wearing his own Asgardian-made US Army dress uniform. "When'll that be, anyway? Next month?"

"Shut up," said Steve, watching his newly clean-shaven reflection turn red. "What if this is a huge mistake? I'll be showing up out of the blue when the whole country thinks I'm missing or dead. This isn't protocol at all."

"Since when do you care about protocol?" said Bucky. "Come on, you've earned it. And I think she deserves to be the first one to know you're alive. It's gonna be an interesting night."

That was certainly true. Heimdall wasn't simply going to drop the two missing-in-action soldiers into Manhattan on their own; Thor, Loki, and, at Steve's request (and the insistence of both Loki and Heimdall for some reason), Sif would be coming too. Aside from wanting to introduce his Asgardian friends to his Earth friends, Steve thought it might be better to meet in an informal setting before the subject of the Tesseract came up.

There was a knock on the door. "Captain, may I enter?" It sounded like Lady Sif.

"Come on in," said Steve, finally satisfied with the way his tie looked.

Sif walked into the room, and his and Bucky's mouths both fell open. Instead of her usual armor, she was clad in a cherry red swing dress with pointed silver trim on the bodice and lapels, along with matching lipstick and heels, and her hair fell in large curls around her shoulders. She looked like she could be Peggy's sister. "Is this really what Midgardian women look like?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah," said Bucky, with a glance at Steve.

"I told you," said Loki, following her in. He was wearing an English officer's uniform, and thankfully the ridiculous mustache from Hungary had not come with it. "I've been surveying Midgard a bit to get a better sense of what they look like at these sorts of things. I wouldn't deliberately do it wrong."

"But surely my lips aren't supposed to be this red," said Sif. "It feels so strange!"

"Don't be ridiculous. It's all an illusion; it doesn't feel like anything."

"You know what I mean," she snapped.

"Well you can't go to a Midgardian dance hall looking like a warrior."

"I think you look swell," said Bucky, cutting through the bickering.

Sif's discomfort and irritation melted away, and she flashed him a smile.

"There," said Loki. "See?" He turned to Bucky. " _Thank_ you. Are we all ready to go, then?"

X

Peggy didn't know what had possessed her to actually come to the Stork Club tonight. She'd never done anything so masochistic in her life. Steve wasn't going to be there. Even Stark knew there was no hope left, which was probably why he had offered to personally fly her all the way back to Manhattan. He might be the most arrogant, womanizing prat she had ever met, but he obviously blamed himself for failing to locate the Hydra warplane, particularly after finding that shining blue cube. He hadn't so much as flirted with her since the plane went down, though she doubted he'd be able to hold back forever.

The atmosphere of the club was at complete odds with her melancholy mood. The band was playing bright, upbeat swing and the floor was full of energetically dancing couples. Peggy let Howard help her off with her coat, but when he made to accompany her to the bar, she decided it was time to put her foot down. "Howard, I'm sure there are plenty of girls here without the good sense to turn down a dance from you," she said, forcing a smile. "There's no need for you to sit vigil with me as I mope my way through a few gin and tonics."

He protested, but she argued him down fairly quickly. By the time she had been supplied with her gin and tonic, it was five minutes to eight. She really should have forgone her usual eye makeup tonight. She thought back to when she received word that Michael had been killed in action. They had parted badly, and she never had the chance to put things right with her older brother. She didn't know if this was better or worse. She'd been able to talk to Steve right up until the crash. He'd been so brave. A brave, wonderful, stupid man. Why did all the men she cared for most have to be such selfless bloody heroes? She should have known what would happen from the moment she watched him jump on a dummy grenade when all the bigger, stronger recruits were running for cover.

Dimly, she heard the current song come to an end. When it started up again a moment later, the song was a much slower one—a foxtrot beat with less brass and more strings. She glanced over at the stage and frowned. There was a man in uniform standing not far from the musicians, and if she didn't know better, she would have sworn it was Sergeant Barnes. It took her a second to recognize the new song as "Long Ago and Far Away." She stifled a bitter laugh and faced her drink again.

" _Long ago and far away_

 _I dreamed a dream one day_

 _And now that dream is here beside me_

 _Long the skies were overcast_

 _But now the clouds have passed_

 _You're here at last…"_

Peggy squeezed her eyes shut tight. She'd made it without crying so far, but that would surely change any second.

"I hope I made it on time."

Her eyes flew open, her breath catching in her chest. She had to be imagining things. He couldn't possibly be here. When she turned around, there would be no one there, and she would continue her sorry night as planned. But when she did turn around, Steve Rogers was standing there, wearing a crisp dress uniform and smiling sheepishly at her. There wasn't so much as a scratch on him.

"You're here," she breathed. "How are you here? Does the Colonel know? How did you make it out? There was going to be a memorial in Washington next week. President Truman was going to present you the Medal of Honor." She finally managed to get her babbling under control, but he didn't look like he minded.

"It's a long, very strange story. I'll tell you all about it later. For now, I was thinking I'd take you up on the offer for dance lessons, if that's still on the table."

She let out a noise that might've been a laugh or a squeak and launched herself at him. She collided with him slightly off-center, so he was forced to spin around as he caught her. Then they were kissing in full view of the entire club, and she could not have cared less. She was so happy she could have floated off the floor if he wasn't already holding her a few inches above it.

When they broke apart a few wonderful moments later amid a few wolf-whistles from the other patrons, she couldn't suppress a giggle. His face was smeared with lipstick, and she knew hers couldn't look much better. Before she could look for a handkerchief to sort them out, a black-haired British officer slightly taller than Steve walked past. With a smirk in their direction, he gave a small wave, and she could have sworn that his fingers flashed with green light. A similar flash traveled over Steve's face, leaving it perfectly clean. "You're welcome," she thought she heard him say.

"Who was that?" she said, watching the officer, who, in the three seconds since she last looked at him, had somehow managed to insinuate himself between Howard and a blonde he'd been chatting up. Howard looked deeply affronted.

"Part of the long story. I'll introduce you in a little bit," said Steve, who was wearing the widest smile she'd ever seen on him. Even in the rosiest moments of her engagement to Fred, she'd never put much stock in the idea that a man could cause a woman to become weak in the knees, but that _smile_. He took her hand and led her to the dance floor.

" _Chills run up and down my spine_

 _Aladdin's lamp is mine_

 _The dream I dreamed was not denied me_

 _Just one look and then I knew_

 _That all I longed for long ago was you"_

X

Sif watched the reunion between the captain and his lady, truly happy for them. She had spent enough time around the mortal man to recognize that his had not been an easy life. One who could weather so many hardships and still be as good and kind as he was deserved to find joy. She was proud that Asgard had played such a large role in bringing that about, reuniting him with his love and restoring his dearest friend to him.

As though her thoughts had summoned him, Sergeant Barnes approached her a moment later. "I've danced with you on your world; it's only fair if you dance with me on mine," he said, grinning.

She grinned back. "Of course, but you will have to show me how it is done here."

" _Long ago and far away_

 _I dreamed a dream one day_

 _And now that dream is here beside me_

 _Long the skies were overcast_

 _But now the clouds have passed_

 _You're here at last"_

The steps were not difficult for a seasoned warrior to learn, and Sif quite enjoyed herself dancing with the sergeant. But her gaze was drawn frequently to where Thor was standing with Loki as she twirled around the dance floor. Even in the illusory uniform and with his beard and long hair hidden to view, Thor stood out from the mortal men around him. Not that he had realized it. He was frowning at the glass in his hand—no doubt unimpressed by the Midgard-brewed drink.

Beside him, Loki's eyes had a wicked gleam to them, and she watched him leave Thor to go and talk to an auburn-haired woman in a yellow dress. A man with dark hair and a mustache but no beard scowled heavily at him from behind her back. She rolled her eyes. When she looked back at Thor, she found him staring at her. She blushed and forced a smile before turning her attention back to Barnes. "How are you enjoying Volund's work?" she said, tapping a finger on the back of his left hand.

He used it to spin her around. "It's really something else," he said. "It feels a little different, but it works just like I never lost the real one." Then he snorted at something over her shoulder. "Does Loki do that a lot?"

"What?" They revolved so she had a clear view of him again. He had abandoned the auburn-haired woman for a brunette, and the dark-haired, mustached man was standing nearby with two drinks in hand, looking livid. "Oh, one of his favorite pastimes at a gathering like this is to identify the largest ego in the room and shred it to pieces. I don't think that poor man will enjoy a single dance tonight."

"Howard Stark is about the farthest thing there is from poor," said Barnes, amused. "He can take it."

X

" _Chills run up and down my spine_

 _Aladdin's lamp is mine_

 _The dream I dreamed was not denied me_

 _Just one look and then I knew_

 _That all I longed for long ago was you"_

Thor watched his oldest friend dancing with Sergeant Barnes. He'd tried to ask Sif for a dance in the feast hall the other night just to see if there was anything to what Loki and Rogers had said, but she had pulled the mortal onto the floor instead without even noticing him, and now they were dancing again, and she was laughing at something Barnes had said. His brother and the captain had been so convinced that Sif was in love with him. Had they been wrong? Or had she lost interest because she'd received no encouragement? The idea vexed Thor much more than he would have expected.

" _Just one look and then I knew_

 _That all I longed for long ago_

 _Was you"_

As odd as Midgardian clothing was, Sif looked lovely tonight. In fact, Thor was having a hard time understanding how he'd failed to notice that for so long.

The song came to a gentle end, and Barnes raised Sif's hand to his lips and kissed it. The vexation brewing in Thor's chest spiked sharply. He set aside the unimpressive drink and walked towards them, scattering a few of the mortals with his purposeful stride, including a dark-haired man he dimly recognized from the planning sessions about the Tesseract, who seemed to have been heading in the same direction. Sif's eyes widened when she spotted him approaching, and Barnes grinned and melted into the crowd.

"Good Lady Sif, will you do me the honor of dancing with me?" said Thor, holding out a hand. The skalds had struck up a new song. This one was much more boisterous, and the people around them were already getting excitedly into position.

"Thor, I...we don't know the dance," said Sif, even as her hand drifted up to his. "We'll look like fools."

"Then we'll look like fools," said Thor. "But it can't be too hard to learn. We have overcome far more fearsome obstacles than this!"

She nervously wet her lips with her tongue, then nodded. He beamed at her. The next few minutes were a disaster, but they laughed their way through it, and by carefully observing the couples spinning around them, they were able to mostly work out what to do by the time the next song started.

X

After his dance with Sif, Bucky headed for the bar, where he found Loki sampling a drink. "Well the alcohol certainly hasn't improved since my last visit to Midgard," he said with a grimace.

"Then you should leave it for someone who'll appreciate it," said Bucky, relieving him of the drink and draining it himself.

"You've earned it anyway," said Loki. "You successfully made my brother jealous enough to actually take notice of what should have been obvious for half a millennium." They passed a few songs this way, Loki watching Thor and Sif with a smug expression, Bucky watching Steve and Peggy with a contented one, all while Loki tried a variety of drinks that he let Bucky finish because none could measure up to his lofty standards. Bucky also could have sworn he spotted a second Loki talking to a pretty dame across the club, not far from where Howard Stark was standing.

"Shouldn't you be out there dancing?" said Loki.

"Not really in the mood for it tonight," said Bucky. He was too preoccupied by the fact that he was less than a mile away from home, which had definitely had time to get a visit from a notifying officer that he was missing and presumed dead by now. This could be his only chance to assure them in person that he was still alive until the war was over. He and Steve might be across the Atlantic for months—maybe years—longer, once they reported back to the Colonel.

He suddenly missed them so much it was like there was a rock in his stomach. Rebecca and Joanie had written enthusiastically to him about their respective nursing and telephone operator jobs, and Charlie kept promising that he'd be taller than him by the time Bucky got home or the kid was old enough to enlist and join him overseas, whichever came first. Thankfully it would be another year and a half before the latter was possible. After what he'd been through over there, he might be willing to go back, but he hated the very idea of his baby brother enlisting.

"You've gone rather quiet," Loki observed.

"Oh," said Bucky. "Yeah. I was just thinking about stepping out to go visit my family. I'm pretty sure they think I'm dead."

"What's stopping you?" said Loki.

"Well...aren't Steve and I supposed to be helping you, Thor, and Sif blend in?"

"How much trouble do you think we can get into in one evening?" said Loki innocently.

Bucky leveled him an extremely flat look.

"Okay, pal, I've had enough of this." They turned to see an irate Howard Stark storming up, eyes on Loki. "How many brothers do you have, and why is it that the only dames any of you are asking to dance are the ones I've looked at longer than two seconds?"

"I don't know what you mean, sir," said Loki. "My only brother is the oafish blond dancing over there with our childhood friend. I myself have been right here enjoying drinks with Sergeant Barnes for the last three or four songs."

"It's true," said Bucky, suppressing a grin. He and Steve had run into Stark first when they arrived at the Stork Club, and he'd accepted their promise to explain how they were both alive and in New York once they were all back at SSR headquarters.

"Fine," said Stark, "but it's a little hard to celebrate the two of you being alive when I can't seem to get any company." He walked off, looking irritable.

X

"You must miss your family terribly," said Loki, as though there had been no interruption. "Separated from them by war."

"Yeah," said Barnes.

"You should go to them," said Loki. "We can do without you for a few hours. You have my word."

"Thanks," said Barnes, and with one last glance at the dance floor, he headed for the door. Loki barely noticed him depart; his mind was racing too fast. He didn't even bother to continue thwarting Stark's amorous pursuits.

The sergeant's situation had given him an idea. Families separated by war would want nothing more than to be reunited. And they would, of course, be deeply grateful to the one facilitating that reunion. How many Jotnar had been living as stranded refugees on Midgard all these centuries? Surely the three he and Thor had battled could not be the _only_ ones...

* * *

I didn't just make up Bucky's family. The bio of him in the museum in Winter Soldier mentions that he's the oldest of four siblings. (It also lists two different birthdates for him, but I'm gonna ignore that and focus on the information about his family.) In the comics, he has a sister named Rebecca, so I kept her and made up Joan and Charles. Charles is the baby of the family, and the difference in age between him and Bucky is part of how Steve and Bucky grew up so much like brothers.

The song the band is playing is a really popular '40s song by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin that first appeared in a '44 film starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. There have been around a hundred different recorded versions of the song since the movie, so it seemed like a safe bet that bands playing at popular clubs would have been familiar with it. I wanted to find a good one to fit Steve's line "We'll have the band play something slow" that worked both for Steve/Peggy and Thor/Sif. I'm pretty happy with it.

We're about done with the Captain America crossover stuff. The only big thing left for the human characters is to figure out what to do about the Tesseract, and then we'll find out what Loki has in mind for any stranded Jotnar still on Midgard and how that will factor into his plans for Jotunheim. And unless something else occurs to me while I'm working on the Jotunheim stuff, that should be the final storyline of the fic.


End file.
